Gallery: In Living Color
April 1, 2006
Recently Charlie Maher has reached what he calls an “artistic writer’s block.”
“I haven’t been able to work,” he says. “I’ve only finished two full-size pieces
and seven smaller studies,” or about 20 days of work in two months’ time.
“Sometimes it’s effortless, sometimes it’s like I’ve never painted before in my
life,” he says. When he gets stuck, Maher has been known to retreat into 40
years of photographs he has taken from the sidelines of racing events
nationwide. Over the holidays, he started sketching a collection of seven Can-Am
cars, a sentimental project he has been reluctant to complete.; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
Mercedes Fall Rally, a black 1950s Mercedes on a colorful abstract
background with antennae-like gullwing doors left open wide. (Click image to enlarge)
The Can-Am racing series, which ran from 1966 to 1974, attracted racing’s
biggest names–Mario Andretti, Jim Hall, and Mark Donohue–by eliminating
builder’s restrictions and paying a big purse that dwarfed that of most F/1
races. Here Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme introduced their wedge-shaped yellow
M8B. Clocking in at 210 mph, Team McLaren won all six series races in 1969. Some
of the series’ original racecars were spotlighted at the 2006 Amelia Island
Concours d’Elegance in March, with seven of Charlie Maher’s two-dimensional
versions on display.
“Can-Am was the who’s who of racecar drivers,” recalls Maher, who witnessed the races from the sidelines as an eager young Ford designer. After leaving Ford in the 1970s, he transferred to a graphics design firm in Detroit where he spent 14 years rendering automotive sketches for GM, Honda, and Toyota. Maher has worked as an independent artist since 1988.
“To me, there is really no difference between painting a carburetor and a
bowl full of bananas. Color, shape, and lighting are my draw to automobiles,” he
says of his subjects. Maher has painted racecars, grand touring Cadillacs,
Duesenbergs, and Packards of the ’30s, as well as several contemporary cars.
Recently, he became interested in automobiles of the 1910 brass era:
“They’re very elegant, and the details have remarkable reflectivity.” Despite
their historical significance, Maher claims that he would paint cars just
because they are shiny. He chose his subject for Aston Martin DBR1 because “the
car is a funny shade of green with sky reflections that become white.” He
explains that achieving a glowing chrome effect is as easy as adding sky tones
to the top, earth tones to the bottom, and a horizon line across the middle.
“Painting sheet metal is about concave or convex lines, but paint changes
color,” he says. “It is about the light, and that is what is fun. The car could
have been a lawn mower.”; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
Painted against a basic background with a few unfinished
brushstrokes is Aston Martin DBR1, a winner at Le Mans in the late 1950s. (Click image to enlarge)
The former fine arts major wants his paintings to catch your attention from
across the room. He admits car art can be retentive and says his own style has
matured from his earlier technical renderings. “For me, the car has always taken
second place to the color,” he says. If you do not notice the photograph-quality
Mercedes-Benz from across the room, the abstract background will attract your
eye. For Mercedes Fall Rally, Maher spent two full days sketching pencil
perspectives on velum. He then built up the canvas with acrylic paints that
shifted in color from cool browns, blues, and greens to warmer reddish tones as
they moved upward. Maher explains how a few vertical white lines became slender
birch trees: After dipping his brushes into six coffee cups of acrylic paint, in
Jackson Pollock fashion, he splattered away; randomly placed purple, yellow, and
red spots became bright foliage of the changing trees.
Audiences may be surprised to learn that Maher is color-blind. He discovered the condition as an undergrad at Notre Dame when a friend complained about a stained shirt. Maher literally could not see any problem. “I have trouble with reds and greens, blues and purple. I cannot tell ranges of gray from ranges of taupe,” he explains. To cope, Maher chooses colors within his comfort zone and asks friends and family to check his work. He praises his opaque acrylic paints because they easily amend mistakes. “It’s not quite like using Photoshop,” he jokes, admitting he often paints over sections two or three times.
“Cars are a big part of American culture,” Maher says, with four decades of photographs to back his assertion. In his home studio, he has drawers of photos and computer files brimming with digital images, many captured when attending smaller, user-friendly vintage events where he could get close to his subjects. “At Sebring I can go in the pit area where the mechanics are changing the tires. They let you hop over the wall and take pictures,” he says. The 10-by-15-inch paintings he is finishing for Amelia include renderings of a Chaparral 2A, a Shadow D-8N, a Porsche 917, two McLarens, and two Lolas. “In time, my photographs may become historical documents,” he says. And vibrantly colored historical documents, at that.
Charles J. Maher Automotive Fine Art
248.851.7560
www.doctor-design.com/maherautoart
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