Automotive Detailing: L. Lockwood Pictures Desire

Automotive Detailing: L. Lockwood Pictures Desire

From Southern Woman, December 2003
Claire Harth

Lory Lockwood’s left eye hasn’t worked well since childhood. The impairment, however, may be a stimulus for a unique artistic vision. Her most recent show, “Images of Desire” at the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New Orleans, paid homage to modernity’s most alluring eye candy: luxury cars and motorcycles. Lockwood created the paintings by first taking photographs, historically with a Pentax camera and more recently with a digital. She transferred the images to the computer, enlarging them to capture extreme detail, and then painted what she saw. She suspects that this method of flattening a 3-D images through a camera’s eye and then recreating a visual perspective of three dimensions on canvas is a manner of contending with her own ‘cyclopic’ eyesight.

Born in Baton Rouge, Lockwood’s family moved to the suburbs of New York City when she was young. She returned south to attend Tulane University in the late 60’s, earning a B.F.A. and M.A. After college, the young painter began teaching art at Metairie Park Country Day School, with plans to eventually return north. “I kept thinking that I was going to move back to New York and join the art scene, but that never happened,” she says.

Instead, Lory married, started a family and continued her career here. At the forefront of the region’s contemporary art scene, Lory has shown all over the Gulf South in major exhibitions, winning countless awards in the process. In 2000, she earned a second graduate degree, an M.F.A. from Vermont College. While in school she explored her fascination with eroticism, writing a seminal paper on the subject. Although Lockwood has been working with the imagery of cars and mannequins for about 10 years, it only recently coalesced in to the idea of desire. Lory’s engine was revved for her new project.

“Images of Desire” is a triumph and a feast for the senses, with up close views and panoramas of brightly colored cars and bikes, filled with dashboards, hubcaps, Harleys and headlights. It’s Lockwood’s first show at the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, and she spent two years in preparation. The spectacle opening night began street-side, with a full chrome regalia of sports cars parked in front of the gallery, including a Ferrari, Lamborghini and Mini Cooper.

The paintings in the show are hypnotically beautiful and strange, depicting bold engines, emblems and logos (look closely and you’ll even find Lockwood herself as a voyeuristic onlooker behind a camera), distorted through the curve of chrome or reflected in a car’s mirror. Aside from the artist, the only figures in the paintings are mannequins, who, at times in her life, Lory identifies with. These surrogate humans, like vehicles, are paragons of perfection. Yet unlike cars, with their power and symbolism, the mannequins remain stubbornly inanimate. Vehicles are commonly considered representations of ourselves, whereas we project ourselves onto a mannequin.

Rather than shun these models of consumerism, Lockwood examines their awesome allure. She terms her painting style “photorealism,” “hyper-realism,” and “abstract-realism.” The shapes and forms with their shine, swirls and reflections do become abstract, lending a fun house perspective. When gaping at these images through the looking glass, the paint itself seems to stretch over the mechanical contours.

A Lockwood favorite and one of the most personal paintings in the show is a 24-piece mélange titled, ironically “Getting it Together.” The work was originally a single large canvas called “Limbo,” a title that refers to “the place between where no decision has been made and all is possible,” she says. It was painted in a time of uncertainty in Lory's life, which include getting divorced and then finding happiness again with Tony Watts, a businessman from Wales. Her grad school instructors found “Limbo” and its composition so unsatisfying that Lockwood set about revising. She began cutting and arranging the parts in different order, each time achieving a unique result. A mannequin’s blank stare, hands with candy red nails, Christmas lights and colored beads all mix and match. As with magnetic poetry sets – ubiquitous on refrigerator doors several years ago – moving the individual pieces offers exponential variety and meaning. The deconstruction of the original and its renewal reflected Lory’s inner transformation.

Lory traveled the country attending car shows and photographing what she calls “symbols of potency and speed” to create Images of Desire.” Her husband, an automobile enthusiast, possesses his own objects of desire, including a 66 E-type Jaguar, a Triumph TR3A and a Mini Cooper S. Lory, on the other hand, opts for practicality in the real world and can be found behind the wheel of a Toyota Highlander. “I drive my husband’s cars sometimes,” she says almost apologectic over her staid vehicle of choice. “I’m scared of motorcycles,” she admits. “Mostly, I just love looking at and painting them.”


Home The Artist Paintings New Paintings & Events Press Prints Commissions Resume Contact/Purchase Links	Automotive Detailing: L. Lockwood Pictures Desire From Southern Woman, December 2003 Claire Harth Lory Lockwood’s left eye hasn’t worked well since childhood. The impairment, however, may be a stimulus for a unique artistic vision. Her most recent show, “Images of Desire” at the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New Orleans, paid homage to modernity’s most alluring eye candy: luxury cars and motorcycles. Lockwood created the paintings by first taking photographs, historically with a Pentax camera and more recently with a digital. She transferred the images to the computer, enlarging them to capture extreme detail, and then painted what she saw. She suspects that this method of flattening a 3-D images through a camera’s eye and then recreating a visual perspective of three dimensions on canvas is a manner of contending with her own ‘cyclopic’ eyesight. Born in Baton Rouge, Lockwood’s family moved to the suburbs of New York City when she was young. She returned south to attend Tulane University in the late 60’s, earning a B.F.A. and M.A. After college, the young painter began teaching art at Metairie Park Country Day School, with plans to eventually return north. “I kept thinking that I was going to move back to New York and join the art scene, but that never happened,” she says. Instead, Lory married, started a family and continued her career here. At the forefront of the region’s contemporary art scene, Lory has shown all over the Gulf South in major exhibitions, winning countless awards in the process. In 2000, she earned a second graduate degree, an M.F.A. from Vermont College. While in school she explored her fascination with eroticism, writing a seminal paper on the subject. Although Lockwood has been working with the imagery of cars and mannequins for about 10 years, it only recently coalesced in to the idea of desire. Lory’s engine was revved for her new project. “Images of Desire” is a triumph and a feast for the senses, with up close views and panoramas of brightly colored cars and bikes, filled with dashboards, hubcaps, Harleys and headlights. It’s Lockwood’s first show at the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, and she spent two years in preparation. The spectacle opening night began street-side, with a full chrome regalia of sports cars parked in front of the gallery, including a Ferrari, Lamborghini and Mini Cooper. The paintings in the show are hypnotically beautiful and strange, depicting bold engines, emblems and logos (look closely and you’ll even find Lockwood herself as a voyeuristic onlooker behind a camera), distorted through the curve of chrome or reflected in a car’s mirror. Aside from the artist, the only figures in the paintings are mannequins, who, at times in her life, Lory identifies with. These surrogate humans, like vehicles, are paragons of perfection. Yet unlike cars, with their power and symbolism, the mannequins remain stubbornly inanimate. Vehicles are commonly considered representations of ourselves, whereas we project ourselves onto a mannequin. Rather than shun these models of consumerism, Lockwood examines their awesome allure. She terms her painting style “photorealism,” “hyper-realism,” and “abstract-realism.” The shapes and forms with their shine, swirls and reflections do become abstract, lending a fun house perspective. When gaping at these images through the looking glass, the paint itself seems to stretch over the mechanical contours. A Lockwood favorite and one of the most personal paintings in the show is a 24-piece mélange titled, ironically “Getting it Together.” The work was originally a single large canvas called “Limbo,” a title that refers to “the place between where no decision has been made and all is possible,” she says. It was painted in a time of uncertainty in Lory's life, which include getting divorced and then finding happiness again with Tony Watts, a businessman from Wales. Her grad school instructors found “Limbo” and its composition so unsatisfying that Lockwood set about revising. She began cutting and arranging the parts in different order, each time achieving a unique result. A mannequin’s blank stare, hands with candy red nails, Christmas lights and colored beads all mix and match. As with magnetic poetry sets – ubiquitous on refrigerator doors several years ago – moving the individual pieces offers exponential variety and meaning. The deconstruction of the original and its renewal reflected Lory’s inner transformation. Lory traveled the country attending car shows and photographing what she calls “symbols of potency and speed” to create Images of Desire.” Her husband, an automobile enthusiast, possesses his own objects of desire, including a 66 E-type Jaguar, a Triumph TR3A and a Mini Cooper S. Lory, on the other hand, opts for practicality in the real world and can be found behind the wheel of a Toyota Highlander. “I drive my husband’s cars sometimes,” she says almost apologectic over her staid vehicle of choice. “I’m scared of motorcycles,” she admits. “Mostly, I just love looking at and painting them.”
Home The Artist Paintings New Paintings & Events Press Prints Commissions Resume Contact/Purchase Links