Portland Art Open

Daric Cheshire’s riveted aluminum paintings are unique in their materiality and sturdy in construction. They are the product of a man who has applied his intuition and skill with an industrial medium to the concepts of painting, and are all the more successful for it.

One of the strongest qualities of these paintings is how they circumvent the static nature that seems inherent in their construction. Though they’re riveted firmly together with grid-like compositions and flat planes of color, the mechanical surface belies more painterly sensibilities. The metal has been scratched and worn, while the colored lacquer shows signs weathering. In these spaces we can see Daric’s hand at work, as well as the external forces that often act on his materials.

Thanks to him for taking some time out of his day to discuss his work with me.

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How long have you lived in Portland?

I’ve lived in Portland since early 2005.

And where are you from originally?

I was raised in Texas and I spent a lot of time in the bay Area.

How did you get into the motorcycle business?

Nearing completion of art school and realizing I wanted to do a little bit more, I was interested in mechanics and motorcycles, so I literally dropped out of art school and went to Mechanics school. And I’ve just been doing it from there.

So you did go to art school at first?

Oh yeah, right out high school I went to San Francisco Art Institute. I spent two and a half years there with a semester in New York. It just became a combination of me being burned out and sick of it, and seeing friends get out and working for minimum wage; I didn’t like that. I wanted to experience a few more things.

So you went to art school for a while - what caused you to go in the first place? What turned you on to art?

I’ve been doing art since I was six, for summer camp. By fifth grade I was being bussed to Vanguard school and then graduated from an arts high school. So I’ve just been doing it my entire life.

What did you study in school?

Basic liberal arts, painting, and sculpture. And some printmaking.

Was anyone else in your family an artist?

My mom did some painting when I was in high school and junior high. She took some city college classes, but didn’t paint professionally. My sister’s an attorney, and my brother’s a professor.

Are you the oldest child, youngest…

Middle.

Do you bike or race at all yourself?

I ride on the track occasionally. I don’t ride on the street personally anymore. I have a Vintage Bike that I was going to race, but I haven’t gotten around to it. I’m building the motor now. Through the shop we support a race team, I built a racing bike for the guy that runs it locally.

What interests you about bikes?

Like a lot of guys in high school, I was fascinated with them, but never allowed to have one when I lived with my parents. I moved to San Francisco and got one, cause it was the practical way to get around the city. And there’s just this side of my brain that likes the mechanical aspect. Not just bikes in general. I do Ducati and BMW, and they are different from other bikes in the way they’re put together.

So it’s nice to work with something of superior quality?

Superior quality, build, character, yeah.

What work are you going to be showing for the Portland Art Open?

It’ll be primarily the metal work from this past year, the paintings out of aluminum. I’ll have the wrist bands as well.

Why do you work in aluminum?

It’s a part of who I am. It’s very mechanical, it’s trade-like - the methods for making it. I spent about a year and a half working on airplanes back in California, so I picked up some of the trade. It’s an idea I came up with of putting who I am and my experiences back into art.

What kind of tools are you using when making these paintings?

Drills, presses, breaks for bending it. A rivet gun, because everything is hammer riveted together. I also use lacquer on the colored portions.

Do you color the metal before you assemble the painting?

I color it before I assemble it.

Do you have an ideal space in mind for these paintings?

Museums. (laughs) White walls, high end loft space. Somewhere you can see it in a good scale.

You work in metal, and you work on motorcycles. Do you ever consider pushing the two together even more? Have you ever thought of using bikes or bike parts in your work?

No, I’ve seen that a lot, and that’s not really who I am. I like to build custom bikes and I’ve built custom bikes before, but that’s being creative with the motorcycles. But the motorcycles being the painting or the sculpture, I don’t think that will ever happen. I don’t really like using found objects - I like everything from scratch. Even with the other work that I’ve done or studied, I’ve always considered myself to be a painter in what I do.

Do you treat the studio experience similarly or differently from the shop experience?

The painting with the metal is creative but it’s pretty structured at the same time, which may be why it works well for me, or has been in the past. It’s pretty tedious - it’s completely different from doing an oil painting. You have to do things precisely, which was something I had never been used too with artwork. In that way it’s like work with motorcycles. But sitting there and thinking about the painting and looking at the painting, it’s nothing like shop work.

You mentioned structure. Do you do a lot of preliminary sketches for your paintings or are they more free form?

They’re pretty free form. I don’t think I’ve done a drawing for any of them. I start with a couple shapes and just go from there. It’s like a collage, but using painting sensibilities as well.

Do you have any artistic or visual influences?

I like a lot of the old masters, my favorite painters are Bacon. Gordon Matta Clark is my favorite sculptor/installation artist. But I’ve never really liked looking at lots of other artists. One thing about art school is that you are forced to look at artists and that used to always bother me; how depressing I found other artwork to be, especially acceptable, “showing” work. I’d say some of these were influenced by Bacon, just slightly. I did borrow his dimensions for the larger pieces. They’re modeled after a couple of his figurative sizes that he used consistently.

How did you like working in that size?

It was great. I’d like to work bigger and do some tryptics, but I was working out of a one car garage when I made all those, so I didn’t have the space. I’d like to try making a painting as big as I could possibly get, so I hope to use the space here (Cheshire Motorsports) to do that. I envisioned blocking off the back section, and making a studio back there.

Do you ever feel tempted to do something illusionistic or representational?

I lean towards abstract. I’ve been drawing all my life, but when I work realistically, it’s a little bit too contained for me and I’m never really satisfied with doing it. I consider this recent abstract work a breakthrough for me. It gets back to who I am and reflects my personality as well. When I want to get more literal, there’s projects like Domestic Surveillance and the wristbands.

Your Uninsured wristbands and Domestic Surveillance both seem very conceptual, but your paintings are lot more abstract. Do they have a conceptual motive behind them?

I think everything does, subconsciously at the very least. Not actively, though. Not in creating them. All my art has been based on individual aesthetic. I’m not much of a conceptual artist. Who I am makes up the paintings, but the end result is a product that could only really be done by me, because it takes the technical skills and the fine arts background when it comes together. I don’t know any artists who can bend, break, roll and rivet panels together in this way. So there’s kind of a concept in that respect. Ultimately, though, I’m more about the materials and the process.

 

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Thanks again to Daric for taking the time to participate in this interview. Daric Cheshire and Carrie Cheshire will be showing their work at Cheshire Motorsports, 4815 SE Division St. There is an opening reception Thursday September 25th, 6 - 8pm.