A few days ago, Rod sent me an email about some artwork he saw on display at last weekend's California Hot Reunion at Famoso. I visited the website of the artist and came away quite impressed. His name is James Owens and he refers to his automotive artwork as "car noir". Drawing a lot of inspiration from vintage movie posters, and artists like Norman Rockwell and Dave Stevens, Owens' paintings offer up stylistic scenes that James describes as "one part hot rod, one part film noir, and one part Pulp Fiction". That sounds like a perfect and description to me.
James has been around cars his entire life, originally growing up in Detroit, he has since migrated to the USA's other car capital, Southern California. Some of his credentials include a BA in illustration from the Center for Creative Studies and a lot of work in the field of advertising.
When describing the style of his paintings, James says, "Lavishly recording the details of a specific car doesn't interest me. For that a Photograph will do. I seek to create a mood. First and foremost I want the viewer to be entertained." This style is evidenced in here in a painting called "Hush Hush".
James primarily works with canvas and oil paints, but he also been experimenting with new media using a mixture of newspapers from the
'40s, canned spray paint, one shot enamel, and oil paint. In this work entitled "Flatty", just one part of the car is shown, with the flathead V8 engine being the centerpiece of the scene. The pinstriping also adds to the mood of the painting.
This one entitled "Roscoe Said Goodbye For Me", is heavily inspired by film noir. In James' words, "Dangerous dames and goons with big trunks and bad intentions are all part of my world."
I think these paintings do a provide a very creative mix of old cars and vintage pop culture without being "cheesey". Now I just need to figure out which prints I want to get for my next apartment!
Thanks to James for providing us with some samples of his work. For more, make sure you check out his site at www.car-noir.com.
-Mike Garrett