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[av_heading heading=’The Huxleys: Masters of Disguise’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote modern-centered’ subheading_active=” show_icon=” icon=’ue800′ font=” size=” av-medium-font-size-title=” av-small-font-size-title=” av-mini-font-size-title=” subheading_size=’15’ av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” icon_size=” av-medium-font-size-1=” av-small-font-size-1=” av-mini-font-size-1=” color=” custom_font=” icon_color=” margin=” margin_sync=’true’ padding=’10’ icon_padding=’10’ link=’manually,http://’ link_target=” id=” custom_class=” av_uid=’av-kp6jjzi4′ admin_preview_bg=”][/av_heading]
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Easy as it may be to get caught up in the sheer spectacle of The Huxleys’ work, real heart and substance underpin the fur, fluff, and feather boas. Charlotte Middleton writes.
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Sporting any one of the looks they have created during their colourful performance careers, The Huxleys are a vision. Their genre-bending, transgressive, and unapologetically excessive practice may even be considered visionary. Try as a writer might to pen the perfect synopsis of The Huxleys’ work, no-one explains their practice better than the artists themselves: “We would describe what we do as a queer visual assault. Escapist wizardry to a disco beat.”
Each half of the duo – established visual artists in their own right – Will and Garrett Huxley have been working together as The Huxleys for seven years. The couple are based in Melbourne, which they appreciate not only for its thriving LGBTIQ+ theatrical scene, but surprisingly, also its weather – “it’s cold enough to withstand wearing so much makeup and costumery.”
From sleek sequined bodysuits to inflated female genitalia complete with pink frills, the extravagant get-ups donned by The Huxleys serve a greater purpose than mere decoration. “They offer a surreal anonymity which takes away gender and the traditional silhouette of the body,” they explain. “Once you step out of those binaries, you can explore all sorts of magic.”
This magic begins in their studio with drawings, which are then turned into costumes, then staged and photographed to produce spectacular images as if summoned from a hallucinatory, high-camp, fever dream. As loud and proud queer men, the pair’s motivation for producing this kind of work is highly personal: “We want to emphasize all the things we were teased about or told to repress when we were growing up and celebrate them. We want to challenge normality and homophobia and bring a sparkling alternative.”
For their latest body of work titled Places of Worship, The Huxleys have turned their focus to, as they describe it, “the fading magic of the natural world.” Casting themselves in the role of exquisite outsiders existing on the fringes – an experience familiar to both of them – the images communicate a sense of longing for the unique and vulnerable splendour of the wilderness. Priscilla Queen of the Desert comes to mind when the pair describe shooting on location across Victoria, Tasmania, and New South Wales – “a real struggle on our own in costume and makeup!”
As they tell it, the special places The Huxleys visited had a profound impact on them, and the resulting photographs are utterly captivating in their otherworldliness. “The natural world is non-judgmental, beautiful and precious,” say the artists. “For us, being queer and unlike everyone else is something we’ve learned to find beautiful and precious and worth celebrating. Hopefully we’ve been able to translate that in this work.”
Places of Worship runs from 7 to 11 July 2021 at the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Fitzroy, Melbourne, in collaboration with Murray White Room.
Featured image: The Huxleys, Worlds End. Giclee archival print, 63 x 94cm. Courtesy: the artists.
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