Racing News

By New Zealand artist Mark Olsen

When Michael (Jankowski) first suggested the idea of an art car I asked him what he wanted - he stated that the design should reflect speed, endurance, technology and design - it was my opinion that by the very nature of the car racing round a race track over a long distance it probably implied all that and if he wanted an "art car" it should look like someone had dumped a painting on top of the car. Michael also wanted to tie the Creation theme into the piece.

What I did was think of how to connect the viewing audience to the car which is where the idea of having iconic national themes incorporated of the seven destinations of the 2007 races. It was important to me that I incorporated my brand into the project, as an expressive portrait artist I had to merge the icons and the children together. The process was very simple from my point as I went to google and Wikipedia and typed in "National Icons", then with these images, thought about where you would not have them with the children which is the basis of the design.

My concern with the concept of the art car would have the purest petrol heads outraged that someone would mix art and race cars together which is why I used children instead of adults as one is less likely to bag children. I presented the concept to Michael and to his credit did not try and put his personal stamp on it, he presented it to the team which I believe was met with horror and disbelief, he then phoned me to say that it may not be possible to go ahead with the project as he had zero support. At this stage I tried in vein to suggest that he was the leader of the team, leaders lead etc and then from "god only knows where" an idea popped into my head...

I explained that if we were to have a night scene we could tie in the Creation logo, Creation has a star within their brand which if the background was dark could represent night time, however the simplest way to suggest night is to include a moon, and if we had a moon we should put a face in it (remembering Michael had a daughter) and I suggested that we use her's, and it was all over.

I then set about the painting process (as per the photos - and yes I paint with the canvas upside down), professionally had them photographed; sent the disk to Michael where giant stickers where made and applied to the car - and "Children of Le Mans" was created.

More of Mark's work can be seen at www.markolsen-artist.com

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