DANNY GRETSCHER

This corner of the earth smiles at me

May 2017

The old chocolate factory, Chippendale, Sydney

Including Artist Collab dinner with Alfie’s Kitchen

Following twelve years in Berlin, artist Danny Gretscher departs from a deep urban residency. His first solo exhibition in Australia captures Gretscher migrating from the streets, studios and seasons of Europe with an evolution of his subjects. Gretscher's totemic beings discover a metamorphic opportunity in this sun drenched land, their wings, like fronds, begin to photosynthesise.

​”Standing in front of a Gretscher is to be enchanted. It comes replete with its own vocabulary, a constellation of symbols, characters and seeming allegories that describe a wholly original world that simultaneously reveals a refraction, often subtle sometimes stark, of our own. This language has layered, and found further intricacy over the past decade, but the core abstracted figures have remained totemic, with all the power the word infers. I see travellers, heroes, lovers and the occasional villain. I see gods - minor, apex, and more recently avian, all radiating, in dialogue with, Gretscher's ready, unique thesaurus. From one angle tantalisingly mysterious conversations, from the next, completely identifiable to the human story. Even the literal titles keep reflecting new interpretation as you turn them over in your mouth. For me his pieces bristle with the unfathomable magic of the Shakespearean canon: at once unparalleled and humanist. His colour, his organic delicacy, his mighty and meek symbols, all smack of an incredible story, of lasting drama.”

- Toby Schmitz, 2017

Top photo credit: Penny Lane