GAVLAK presents a show of new work by Andrew Brischler
“Self Portraits” at GAVLAK continues artist Andrew Brischler‘s long-standing investigation of our pop cultural landscape through his devotion to drawing. Here though, Brischler has shifted his focus away from text-based imagery and pivoted to portraiture. These large-scale works on paper, hand-drawn in complex halftone patterns in gouache and colored pencil, each depict a female character from a film integral to the artist’s own biography. According to Andrew Brischler, “I began watching movies as an anxious gay teen in the early 2000s to process complicated feelings. I spent weekends in middle school devouring everything from Alien to Halloween to Carrie. I saw myself in these films; I was both the monster under the bed and also the girl in peril, trying to flee.” It’s in this way that the Self Portraits transcend mere pop culture homage and instead become documents of a 21st-century queer experience. Through a kind of devotional labor, Brischler draws himself into the narratives of these characters in the hopes of locating himself within our complicated cultural canon.
Andrew Brischler, “Self Portrait (as Leeloo),” 2023, gouache, colored pencil, and graphite on paper mounted to panel in artist’s frame, 62 x 46 inches, courtesy of the artist and GAVLAK.
Andrew Brischler, “Self Portrait (as Elvira),” 2023, gouache, colored pencil, and graphite on paper mounted to panel in artist’s frame, 62 x 46 inches, courtesy of the artist and GAVLAK.
