Art Car Central: Patricia Van Lubeck Dazzling Array of Art Cars

Citroen Visa Art Car By Patricia Van Lubeck

I found this really amazing looking Citroen Visa Art Car all the way from New Zealand by artist Patricia Van Lubeck . This Painted Citroen art car is based on the use of opposite colors that make it really hard to focus and in that note she succeed in giving me headache:)

About Patricia
In such a short time, Patricia Van Lubeck has quickly become a leading neo-surreal artists. Born in Amsterdam in 1965, Patricia’s life has quite recently changed dramatically. She used to be book-keeper until 2000 when she started the 21st century by becoming a full time professional artist. She moved to the Bay of Plenty in New Zealand in 2005. Since then her work has taken a new direction. Although her style is often regarded as surreal, her work does not strictly fall in that category. Her paintings are apparently simple in composition but executed amazingly detailed and visually very dynamic. Her paintings have realistic elements, but above all an alienating atmosphere. Her works in recent years show landscapes and weird plant species which she calls her psychedelic gardens. `` I consider my work an invitation to explore the ways we experience our environment. My inspiration comes from the ordinary things around me, the artist in me just sees things in an unusual perspective. Picture a baker looking at a corn field. He sees bread, cookies and pies. I see shapes, patterns and colors. I like to zoom in on an everyday object such as the pins of a hair brush and imagine a tiny landscape with rows of hairy trees.’’ Remarkably, Patricia is a self-taught and self-starting artist. She sets a high benchmark for all her works and seeks to achieve a high level of craftsmanship. It takes her up to eight hours just to prepare the surface on some canvases. Then she oils up to 10 layers to achieve rich colors and a smooth finish. ``I am always trying to achieve high contrast within an unlimited color range. I love working with geometric patterns. Before I started painting on canvas, my cars had always been willing victims to this passion. Consequently patterns, natural or artificial, form the foundation of a lot of my images.’’ Due to her time-consuming technique Patricia is only able to create about 10 paintings a year. She loves painting at night in her rural studio setting with no distractions – just the call of the ruru (a New Zealand native owl) to keep her company. Patricia thrives on the repetitiveness of her patterns. She feels the calming aura in concentrating with a small brush in her ‘psychedelic botanic garden’. Since 2002, Patricia has exhibited in The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Portugal, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.

2010 grantee of the Pollock-Krasner foundation in New York
finalist 2010 NZ Adam portraiture awards, 2007 NZ Painting and Printmaking Award and 2006 James Wallace Art Awards
2nd place Tivoli Audio PAL Case design contest

Citroen Visa Art Car By Patricia Van Lubeck

My boxy little Panda was just the right car for an intricate tartan pattern. It took some careful planning and a couple of days of concentrated painting but in the end all my efforts payed off..... the car looked like a shopping bag on wheels! We crossed many borders all over Europe with the Tartan Panda without being stopped by customs once. This is the ideal design for smuggling purposes!

Fiat Panda Art Car By Patricia Van Lubeck

Fiat Panda Tartan Art Car By Patricia Van Lubeck

Dazzle Painted Cars
'Dazzle painting' was a camouflage technique used by allied forces during World war I. Ships were painted in large geometrical patterns and contrasting colors in an attempt to confuse the German navy. Most important function of this camouflage was to disguise the front of the ship and its sailing direction to enemy submarines. Although visually very effective, sadly this kind of painting did not prove to be a major advantage in battle. There's a good article about art & camouflage (featuring this car) on the Tate Museum site. An excellent source of info is the book 'Dazzle painting' by Albert Roskam (ISBN 90 71893 02 2). It's written in Dutch but it has lots of images. I gave my cars this urban camouflage to maximize my chances of survival in the inner city traffic.