Fast Cars

Red car, yellow car, red car, yellow car. Red. Yellow. Green. GO. Smokin, speed junkie and petrol head. Intoxicated and souped up. Pumping, gas guzzling, petroleum fuelled. Thrusting, asses spilling, squeezed tight, as testosterone meets oestrogen and bleeds into utero. Foot to the floor, ramp up the volume. Riding high on a high way with a one way track and no return. Forward propulsion at maximum throttle, from beginning to end on one long glorious run to the final STOP. I come from a family of car lovers, where the men talk differentials, hydraulic systems and manifolds. As a child many a weekend was spent at the edge of a race track, eating chips and ice cream. Surrounded by the braying crowds, breathing in exhaust fumes and kicking up dust, I enjoyed a certain freedom whilst Dad was elsewhere solving problems with drive sockets, extension bars and torque wrenches. Returning as an adult and looking through the frame of a camera I see all the commotion and the energy that surrounds the drive to get lumps of metal to move fast. The race track and pits trigger a multitude of sensations, visual, aural and olfactory. This is a painters gold mine, with glutinous enamel, congealed paint drips and clashing colours. Memory becomes fused into the present and the photograph on its own cannot reflect all the layers of experience. Paint and photograph together help to tell another story, of the people I meet, the intergenerational relationships and their drives and passions, alongside my own rememberings.