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visit the FreeWheeling website by following the link :
Last year, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to curate the exhibition,
FreeWheeling - The Allure of the Automobile in Contemporary Art. The exhibit was a collaboration between The Bascom - Center for the Visual Arts, and the Highlands Motoring Festival Foundation. FreeWheeling was a centerpiece component of CELEBRATE ART + AUTOMOBILE, a summer series of events in Highlands, NC.
FreeWheeling featured original automotive works of 13 internationally renowned artists. The exhibition displayed in the Bascom's main gallery in Highlands, NC, and included works on canvas, paper, and sculpture, alongside the display of 3 classic and vintage automobiles. The exhibit’s cars were changed twice during the duration of the 15 week display such that up to 9 cars in total will share gallery space with the artwork.
The exhibition presented a multi-tiered experience in the appreciation of art and the automobile. It examined design as art, the inherent duality of functional art, the allure of the automobile as art itself inspiring expression in another art-form, and the dialogue between inspiration and expression.
Curator's Statement :
"FreeWheeling is an Art-on-Functional Art exhibition. It is meant to position the viewer within the dynamic dialogue between one form of art, (automobiles displayed as exceptional examples of functional art) and the artwork these machines inspired. A contributing subplot within the FreeWheeling experience too, is the inherent dichotomy of functional art.
It is my personal conviction that the purpose of Art is to alter one’s perception such that, upon turning away from a painting, or sculpture, the viewer now considers the world around them a little differently. We humans are sentimental creatures, but nostalgia and sentimentality, that only serves to soothe and bolster preexisting perceptions and emotions, should never be the sole intention of art.
With this criteria as a requisite, a relatively small list was compiled of top-tier, award-winning automotive artist whose work stood as exceptional art. Compiling this body of work was never merely a quest for paintings of cars, but was a search for artist whose work resonated with the fundamental principles: composition, emphasis, contrast, color theory, figure/ground dynamics, rhythm, and proportions. The works had to be visually, and emotionally, engaging regardless whether or not the viewer knew, or cared, anything about the subject matter, automobiles. Some of the paintings in FreeWheeling are not about cars, but contain cars as supporting actors in a compositional narrative.
On a very personal level, curating FreeWheeling has been the marriage of, and opportunity to share, two great passions in my life: Art and Automobiles. Choreographing this experience, within a contained gallery space, also embraced a 3rd passion, architecture.
I grew up in a family infected by the automobile obsession, such that
collecting, restoring, displaying, and driving, magnificent vintage machines was, in many ways, a foundation of our upbringing and an ever-present topic in our household.
The deep love for art began when I started sketching, and painting, at the age of 9, and continues to be a joy. Following my undergraduate studies in Fine Art, I worked as an illustrator, and artist selling my own paintings, for a decade before returning to school to acquire my Masters in Architecture.
It is my hope that you will find FreeWheeling as exciting, and stimulating, as it has been for me to be a part of bringing it to you. Enjoy." P. Knight Martorell