Stripes 7 – Inside Out at Immersive Light and Art (ILA) is  Brenton Drechsler’s first solo exhibition in Adelaide in three years and follows a sold-out show with Michael Reid Northern Beaches. This impressive offering of paintings oscillates between interiors and streetscapes and is influenced by the methodology of queer phenomenology. Drechsler is concerned with how bodies move and inhabit spaces, particularly his orientation within these everyday environments. His paintings are a personal narrative in which he responds to the experiences he has while developing the work.

“I have been looking both inside and outside for compositional data or inspiration,” he shares.

With a background in fashion design followed by a career as cabin crew for Qantas, it was the Covid pandemic that prompted Drechsler to pivot toward a full-time career as a visual artist. Since graduating in 2022, Drechsler has found much success as an artist. During the 2022 Adelaide Central School of Art Graduate exhibition, he received the HSAA (Hill-Smith Art Advisory) Award for outstanding work in painting. This was the beginning of a relationship with HSAA, which has been instrumental in encouraging his painting practice and reassuring Drechsler that he is on the right path.

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Initially, Drechsler thought he would become a textile artist because of his fashion background, but he kept coming back to painting. “Painting for me is forgiving. It’s flexible and versatile,” he explains. “When you’re making garments, often it comes down to the millimetre, you need to be accurate. That ethos doesn’t really suit me. I like to be more fluid.”

Stripes 7 – Inside Out features paintings inspired by scenes of intimate interiors and urban architecture that Drechsler encountered during his travels throughout Europe and the UK. He reimagines these places with bold colours, creating works that are both familiar and unfamiliar, inviting and jarring. His signature green and white stripes are integrated into these works, sometimes overtly and other times subtly however they are always present. “The green and white stripes have as much potency for me today as they did when they emerged in 2022 for that first grad show,” states Drechsler.

Accompanying this latest body of work is a short film made by Studio Seraya Films, which captures the artist in his studio. This archival video provides audiences with an intimate glimpse into Drechsler’s studio life and captures him as he works on the paintings featured in the current exhibition.

Throughout the series, the recurring motif of the stripes acts as an alter ego for the artist and provides a way for him to place himself into different environments.

The choice of colours for the stripes is influenced by Drechsler’s favourite colour, emerald green and the white is the shade he painted his house in the Adelaide Hills. The stripes originated during his time as a fashion designer when he lined his jackets and other clothing with stripes.

“Often at the fashion parades, the models would make more of a fuss over the lining than the actual garment,” Drechsler remarks.

“They’re a stand-in for me, a proxy,” he says of the stripes. “They do what I’m not comfortable doing myself and that’s taking up space and grabbing attention.”

Brenton Drechsler: Stripes 7 – Inside Out is showing at Immersive Light and Art until June 20