Page 52 - 2022-07-01VogueLivingar

ARTISTIC

LICENCE

From invoking Elvis to exploring
notions of gender, masculinity
and romance to sticking a pin,

quite literally, in any prescribed
notion of national identity, this

collective of Australian artists
is determined to tackle the ugly,
the uncomfortable and the

unexpected, all while using
their creative voices to foster

a sense of healing.

By Annemarie Kiely

icture this,” entreats Will Huxley, one half of the contemporary
arts coupling known as The Huxleys, who have just wrapped
production on a photographic series that frames a pair of
intergalactic queer Elvises falling to earth and engaging with
P the Outback. “We’re in the middle of country Victoria, dressed
in full-sequinned costumes, gold guitars, tight bums, big pompadours, blue
and green faces — the full showbiz fizz — about to take our first frame for
the warm-up shot hitchhiking, and this ute, with a dog hanging out, drives
up the dead-end dirt road and a guy yells out, ‘My dog likes the look of you’.”
The air heavies with menacing ambiguity, continues Garrett Huxley, as he
describes 30-plus heat melting their metallic faces. The driver alights and
carries on: “I’ve never seen anything like this before. Do you fellas pick up
many sheilas looking like this?”.
The Huxleys, claiming to be well practised in dealing with the punter who
piss-takes their performative art, calmly explain their art concept of alien
Elvises trying to divine their way back home. They describe an Elvis fever
dream — a road-tripping grab-bag of references running the glitzy gamut from
Liberace to David Lynch; the Yellow Brick Road to the rockabilly Yakuzas in
Japan’s Yoyogi Park — all of which is lost on the farming local whose presence
tips the sparkly tease of their Wizard of Oz odyssey into Kenneth Cook’s
nightmarish fable Wake in Fright.
“What kind of fella wears an outfit like that?” says Will in nasally mime
of the interloper before delivering his own return serve. “A fella that’s up for
a good time.” The pair laugh out loud in memory of the growing rumble of
cars, at the end of the road, that likely responded to the bush telegraph
telling of two overripe Elvises loose in O’Connell’s top paddock.

60 vogueliving.com.au