Darren Brennessel
Whether he's acting as the mutton-chopped mastermind behind the garage-ified, one-man-studio outfit McFadden's Parachute, or as one of the two sunshine supermen behind The LSD Enigma, Rochester rocker Darren Brennessel just oozes rock 'n' roll cool. And the dude paints, too.

He received his sheepskin in graphic design and illustration from RIT in 1994 and another degree in fine-arts painting in 1999. According to the 49-year-old Brennessel, the artist came long before the musician — 24 years before, to be exact.

"I first started drawing — according to my mom — when I was 2 years old," Brennessel says. "I was cognizant of being very excited about drawing and art. I started out doing nature scenes; barns, trees, animals. Then the Golden Books and Dr. Seuss, I was drawing things out of them. I was very fascinated with illustration by watching Captain Kangaroo. But I fell in love with art beyond illustration and cartoons by age 4."

And there was rock 'n' roll, too. "Music was there right at the same time as I became aware of being in love with art. I was a fan of 1960's pop/rock — [songs like] 'Yummy Yummy Yummy' by the Ohio Express and 'Windy' by The Association. I heard them in the car as my mom was driving through the streets of Dansville and it blew my mind. I was hooked and I've always gravitated to and been fascinated by the look of those guys, their instruments, their ability to play. I always wanted to do it, too."

There was just one problem: "I was completely terrified of performing," Brennessel says. "I was extremely shy. I didn't like doing anything in front of people. And I knew to play music I would have to do that. That was a big deterrent in picking up an instrument until I was 24."

He taught himself how to play the drums and sought professional help. "The thing is, I always had the look," he says. "I said, 'I can't have this look and not do this.' So I went to a hypnotist to get over my stage fright."

As for his visual art, Brennessel paints dreamy city scapes. Though urban and man-made, the artist conveys the personality of Rochester's various city scapes over and above the personality and life hustling around these streets buildings, bridges, and skylines. His job as a surveyor affords him the repeated walkabouts and look-sees.

"I can walk out the door and see a painting in something that seems bland to other people," he says. His paintings "incorporate movement, color, emotional response. What I try to do is take my feeling, what I felt when I saw that scene — what basically blew my mind with color, perspective, architecture, geometry, lighting — and urge the viewer to feel the same thing I felt in that moment, in that atmosphere."

And here's where it crosses over. "I see things in my head," Brennessel says. "And I have to visually see music to hear it, whether it's playing the lyrics out like a scene in a movie in my head... Even when I see music structure, it's all in odd shapes and mathematics. So a painting described musically, to me, has all the elements of listening to a song. You've got visual, you've got movement. The only thing missing is sound. I'm a visual thinker, I see music as images."

The two aspects pull at Brennessel relentlessly.

"It kind of tears me apart," he says. "Because I've always felt if I could focus on one or the other, I would excel at one or the other. The two are tied together. Artists like Norman Rockwell just painted, but I can't do that. I was born to do both. I wouldn't want to have to choose.

Source: Rochester City Newspaper

Submitted by: Ande Rasmussen