Fabian Pertzel

Sexuality and Homosexuality: A New View

Sexuality and Homosexuality: A New View, 2018 (Copper etching on found paper)

Sexuality and Homosexuality: A New View, 2018 (Detail Title Page)

This work consists of a series of 30 self portrait prints, each printed in a different way onto the Chapter titles pages of Arno Karlen’s Book Sexuality and homosexuality: a new view. Written in 1971 the book is an analytical examination of homosexuality and sexuality, to put this into context Sexual activity between two consenting adults of the same gender was only decriminalised in Australia in 1994 and 1997 in Tasmania. I found the book at the tip shop covered in mould and became interested in what enlightenment I could gain about myself and how I would have been viewed in a time not that far gone.

Portrait depicts me pushing up against a wall, with my foot print layered on top, attempting to convey a sense of stoicism and a simultaneous struggle. The foot is imbedded deep in the earth but it is pushing a wall that will not move. The other portrait shows me sitting in reflection which is overlaid with my hand print. Here I’m trying to represent another duality, the pose is calm and comforting however the hand obscures the face and distances the figure from the viewer, pushing them away.

Copper etching on found paper

A Dance Of Love and Conflict

Control, 2018 (Oil stick, ink and graphite on paper)

Ecstasy, 2018 (Oil stick, ink and graphite on paper)

Embrace, 2018 (Oil stick, ink and graphite on paper)

The figures interact in a passionate and violent way that blurs the details of the individual bodies merging them and obscuring where one ends and the other begins. I’ve left the faces undetailed, allowing the viewer to project their own identity and the identity of another’s onto the figures and to suggest that of a psychological and internal conflict that is not necessarily externalised. This is reinforced buy the ink that falls from the figures as a thin veil barely concealing emotions that are difficult to express and that may be externalised in destructive ways

Oil stick, ink and graphite on paper

Memories of The Flesh

Memories of The Flesh, 2018 (Detail)

Memories of The Flesh, 2018 (Black and whit negatives printed on acetate)

Black and white photography printed on acetate

A Flower That Would Never Smell as Sweet

A Flower That Would Never Smell as Sweet, 2018 (Detail)

A Flower That Would Never Smell as Sweet, 2018 (Detail with magpie)

A Flower That Would Never Smell as Sweet, 2018 (Detail)

Designed for a game where players would smell the flowers and pick the. The clay balls were filled with different spices and each spice corresponded to a different amount of points. Whoever had accumulated the most points based on what they could smell became the winner.

Wax, paper, wire, unfired clay and spices: cumin, cloves and coffee

To Kerby