Blue Sky is best known for his work, Tunnelvision, which he painted on the wall of the Federal Land Bank in 1975. The mural was featured in People magazine in 1976 and is widely credited with igniting a nationwide interest in high concept public art. Photo courtesy of www.BlueSkyArt.com
Post-war artist Blue Sky will be having a final one-night show of his work at the Arcade Mall at 1332 Main Street on Thursday, September 4, from 5–9 p.m. This will be in celebration of the 50th anniversary of his 50’ x 75’ Tunnelvision mural and will showcase a few early works, entry-level, mid-range, museum worthy paintings, and what looks to be his very last work as well.
Just finished this month, The Best Car in the World, is a 30” x 40” Car Face painting, highlighting his lifelong obsession with beautiful cars. Arguably, the museum pieces and no doubt the most historically important paintings will be of these subject matters of cars and backs of trucks. He shows his passion in these, emphasizing cars in particular have a personality and life of their own.
The backs of trucks, or his Interstate Landscapes, sometimes referred to as “Truck Butts,” is an ongoing series he began in the ’60s and is represented in museum purchase collections, as well as university and corporate collections, emphasizing historical significance is recognized. He was inspired by these while stuck driving on the freeways behind 18-wheelers in his ’71 VW camper pop-top, and realized the significance of this particularly overlooked frequent landscape that is memorable for this time in history. He noticed personalizations on the backs of trucks that made them so different and set out to create assemblages inspired by various ones that included coat hangers, smashed sardine cans, broken paint brushes, ropes, and a mélange of materials that amazingly come together to be both abstract and realistic.
Exhibited, too, will be Portable Parking Space, one of the most unique and original ideas in contemporary art. The idea is simply roll this realistic canvas out by the road and park your car on it, as shown by the series of framed photos with Blue Sky and his ’69 VW convertible doing just that.
Now 87, the artist has solely made his living on his art since 1970. Other than giant murals, there’s nothing the artist enjoys better than painting en plein air, so there will be a selection of those smaller works displayed as well.
Internationally, it is Blue Sky’s trompe l’oeil murals that have captured the appraising attention of the hometowns of Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt alike, while also appearing in university textbooks in Germany and fine art books published all over the world. Yet Blue Sky, although living at one time in New York, California, and Mexico has chosen to stay in South Carolina to paint and present the beauty of his beloved hometown state.
For more information, visit www.BlueSkyArt.com.
Loading Comments