St. Claude Collective: Chrome and Blue Skies
by Matthew Baughman
St. Claude Collective
New Orleans, LA
January 14th, 2009This triptych is of an impressive scale, measuring six feet tall and eight feet wide. The three seascape panels are separated horizontally and are titled Chrome and Blue Skies #1, #2, and #3 starting from the top. The images are painted in acrylic on manipulated digital print. Each image represents the beautiful effect of chrome reflections that distort a bright blue sky above a classic red automobile.
When viewed from a distance these images display incredible movement; they suggest frames reflecting off the car in Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and loathing in Las Vegas”, representing Dr. Thompsons drug induced viewpoint of his red Chevrolet Impala convertible, itself known as “The Great Red Shark”, they are at once disturbing and quite beautiful. These exaggerated images of “The Great Red Shark” carry the name “Blue Skies”, which reminds viewers of the incredible shimmering blue skies, domnant in the reflections in the piece, significant in relation to Lockwood’s many other paintings of automobiles because they all have titles that relate more directly to the reflected rather than the reflector. This is easily seen in the way she chooses to focus on the beauty of the reflections that a different part of each auto returns to us. She shows this with her use of acrylic paint to highlight and intensify the stretching and warping effect the chrome has on the light it throws. The large scale of the piece, together with the cropping which implies intense closeness, allows its viewers to notice details above all else, hiding nothing yet unwilling to reveal itself to the impatient eye.
For those with time to look carefully, after admiring the reflection of blue skies and other automobiles, the photographer reveals herself on the left side of the piece. This provides another subject to put in question after the blue skies and automobiles become self explanatory. This subtly reveals the true nature of the piece by honoring the original work as a photograph and encourages the audience to think deeper than the skein of the machine made surface or even the landscape it reflects. This work might be classified by the traditional yet almost unrehearsed category of the populated landscape”, a category formerly considered above still-life, above landscape and even above landscape with architecture. One very small step below history painting and deserving of the scale deployed in this very contemporary example.
View related artwork: Chrome and Blue Skies
