Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Corvette on Sunset

"Corvette on Sunset" 24 x 36 inches, oil on canvas. By Tony Peters, 2013
 
I have long had the goal/wish/dream of exhibiting at the Los Angeles Art Show at the LA Convention Center. Finally, my new gallery (ALFA) exhibited my work there in January. I finished this new painting "Corvette on Sunset" just in time for the show.
 
I have been painting Hollywood since the mid 1990's when I moved to LA to attend Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. I was barely 20 years old, LA and Hollywood were so different from where I was from, San Diego seemed homogeneous in comparison. My new home was rich with hauntingly familiar scenes from half remembered movie backdrops, film history, and mid-century architecture. Before the days of digital or camera-phones, I was already a shutter bug, a Yashica Electro 35mm camera was my constant companion.
 
"The Whiskey A-Go-Go" 36 x 36 inches, oil on canvas. By Tony Peters 1999.
 
In my explorations I discovered Sunset Strip, Tower Records, The Whiskey a-Go-Go, and a hundred other places... the first paintings I ever exhibited reflected my love for Hollywood and LA architecture, and it has been my subject ever since.
 
 
In my later research, I discovered a series of Ed Ruscha photos of Hollywood Blvd and Sunset Strip that documented all these places too. The above Ruscha photo shows Filthy McNasty's, before it was the Viper Room. Turner's Liquor is still there and looks the same today. This is also the backdrop in my painting, "Corvette on Sunset".