Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Bike Parking



Check out this collection of paintings from Portland artist Chris Davis. He's got a show at Suzette opening on May 27, 2010. Here's what he has to say about this series of paintings (From bikeportland interview):

"I was a messenger in San Francisco for a couple of years, in the '90's. There was a delivery I made once, to the Westin St. Francis, and as I was parking my bike, locking it to a parking meter or whatever, one of the doormen came up to me. He was dressed in this pretty wacky Renaissance Faire sort of outfit, and he walked up to my bike while my radio was squawking at me, said something, and made this sort of motion like he was bringing water to my thirsty horse, which he'd take care of while I ran inside. Which was a hugely goofy idea, of course, but I was kind of cosmically amused by it.

Ever since then, I've always liked to look at my bike as having a sort of character, the way I imagine riders used to relate to their horses -- which probably weren't so easy to just look at as vehicles or machines or toys or "a mode of transportation." So, to come back to all the figurative practice I'd been doing, since I started drawing and painting bikes here in Portland, I've tried to find those sorts of cues in posture and gesture, the clues to character in all the stiff, inanimate bikes that people leave locked up and leaning all over town."


Friday, April 16, 2010

Bicycles
for V. Bokov

The bicycles lie
In the woods, in the dew.
Between the birch trees
The highroad gleams.

They fell, fell down
Mudguard to Mudguard,
handlebar to handlebar
Pedal to pedal

And you can't
Wake them up!
Petrified monsters,
Their chains entwined.

Huge and surprised
They stare at the sky.
Above them, green dusk
Resin, and bumblebees.

In the luxurious
Rustling of camomile, peppermint
Leaves they lie. Forgotten,
Asleep. Asleep.


Translated by Anselm Hollo