Street Spirit: Race car artist draws inspiration from graffiti

Filed under: Motorsports, Etc., Design/Style

Xander Walker turns Ayrton Senna's McLaren into Street Art - Click above for high-res image gallery

In the film "Exit through the Gift Shop", we get an inside look at the world of street art as told to us by Banksy and Thierry Guetta (aka Mr. Brainwash or MBW). This film has received rave reviews and is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It also serves as the inspiration for Xander Walker's Straßenversion (street version) art work.

Mr. Walker combines graffiti art with his love for motorsports. The result is affordable street art depicting vehicles that hold a special place in the heart of many racing enthusiasts. We'll let Xander explain how he does it:

Creating the stencils themselves can take a few hours. after that I spray paint the different layers onto 50lb acid free paper (14 x 17"). I paint them in my garage allowing about 15 minutes for the paint to dry before painting the next layer.

I started making these in late November. I have long been a fan of street art, and the idea came to me after a long McLaren MP4/4 photo and info Internet binge which coincided with my seeing the film "Exit Through the Gift Shop". I initially thought they would look great painted around parking lots of race tracks around the world. I made a stencil and tried out a test print on paper. I thought it looked good, and I put it up for sale at a low price just to see what would happen. Someone bought one almost immediately.

Street art and is inherently anti establishment. Auto racing to me is also inherently anti establishment. People get killed, and it can be a generally wayward, thrill seeking lifestyle. I find the stencil medium to be well suited to capturing the 'outlaw' spirit of Ayrton Senna and motorsport in general.

The pieces range from $25 up to $50, and each is a hand-signed, limited-edition example. You can check out the rest of Xander Walker's work at his online store, and view high-res images in the gallery below. We'll be sure to save some of these for Autoblog's 2012 Holiday Gift Guide...

Gallery: Automotive icons turned street art

[Source: Strassenversion.net, Strassenversion Store]

Street Spirit: Race car artist draws inspiration from graffiti originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 25 Feb 2011 09:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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