Mount Gambier's queer art trail celebrates regional creators during Pride Month
Chelsea Dynan has only been in Mount Gambier a short time, but reconnecting with art has helped her find her place in her new home.
To start Pride Month, a queer art trail has been established to promote LGBTQIA+ visibility in common community spaces.
Dynan has entered art competitions and exhibitions before, including winning the Packer Prize at the Penola Art Show.
But putting her work in the first local queer art trail as a bisexual woman has been one of her most vulnerable experiences.
"When I was back home, I didn't feel safe to be myself.
"Having this opportunity and showcasing that we can put ourselves out there and be seen and heard and feel safe in doing so, that's been the biggest impact for me."
Dynan's art captured a group she felt a strong connection with — medical students who had just moved from home to Mount Gambier to study.
"I wanted to celebrate other people as well as being able to showcase myself in some form of anonymity, so that it's not me in the image," she said.
"I get to celebrate women and other people who are living in this township."
The queer art trail includes work from LGBTQIA+ artists throughout the Limestone Coast region of South Australia.
The exhibition is on display in public places throughout SA's second-largest city, including the Riddoch Art Gallery, shopping centres and cafes.
Artworks are on display from people aged nine to 50.
Kit Cooper helped organise the event and also entered their own pyrography work, something they started after being diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS).
"These particular pieces were created from a point of calm and zen, just a chance to centre myself amidst the chaos.
"I have four children and obviously a lot of organisation going on, so my art is my safe space for myself."
Cooper said having the exhibition in busy places in Mount Gambier was important.
"I'm incredibly proud of what has been pulled together," they said.
"The artists have come together, the community is taking notice and appreciating queer artists.
"It's been wonderful seeing it be so successful, more successful than I admit I even estimated that it might."
Patrick Smith has been a long-term advocate for queer representation in Mount Gambier and is working on a set of artworks for a full solo exhibition in his home town.
He said visibility for the local LGBTQIA+ community was important to create lasting change.
"The incidental appearance of queer iconography, queer motifs, and themes is also to show that you are going to bump into a queer person regardless of the space you're going to be in," he said.
Smith said his art focused on subverting the normalised way of looking at the human body.
"You can then get a very homogeneous and very staid look on the world," he said.
"But to be able to bring in different ways, different angles, to interpret and understand the world around us, it will only make it better and richer."
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