The “Driven to Draw” show at Luminary Coffee, 243 N. Union St., Lambertville, N.J., offers a unique presentation of artist Scott MacNeill’s newest collection of historic and dynamic drawings, featuring cars and other transport vehicles.
“Driven to Draw: Drawings of Cars and other Roadside Things,” runs from May 31 until July 15, with Opening Night on Friday, May 31, from 5:30 to 8 p.m.
The basis of this work is centered on America’s romance with the automobile. For MacNeill, this romance began with his childhood, growing up in Detroit in the 1950s and 60s.
The technique MacNeill has used in creating this art starts with the classic grid method of dividing up the work surface into multiple equal sized squares, allowing an easier transferring of the artist’s original photographic image onto the color-tinted canvas surface.
A few chosen restrictions in the physical creation of this work has this artist working within each small square of the grid as an individual spot of attention. The artist views only a single square of the original reference and then draws each square, one at a time.
The final results seen in this show rewards the viewer with a three-level visual experience. At distance, this art appears to be a photorealistic painting. In moving closer, the square grid effect reveals a surface fractured into faceted squares that do not meet up perfectly. At very close range, the image further transforms because the artist has decided to use a directional stroke pattern that alternates from square to square.
Scott MacNeill is a recently retired professional illustrator and longtime Lambertville resident. He is a graduate of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y.
His work has been used to promote local community activities like ShadFest, the Lambertville Historical Society’s house tour and the Kalmia Club’s Garden Tour. He is also locally known as the Chair(s) Guy (for creating thousands of drawings of chairs) and the curator for the Lambertville free Library Gallery Space.
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