EXCLUSIVE: How Lewis Hamilton helped F1-obsessed artist realise dream
Artist Joel Clark tells w🌞uqian0821.com t🅠he story of his "dream come true" commission from Lewis Hamilton.
“I nearly fell off my chair.”
That was how automotive artist responded to finding out he had been asked by F1 legend 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Lewis Hamilton to create a very special artwork.
Earlier this week it emerged Hamilton had arranged a parting gift for ♕3,000 of his former colleagues at Mercedes. Hamilton commissioned six artists to create a special piece for hiꦍs co-workers at the team as a pa🥃rting gift following his departure from the Silver Arrows.
Hamilton, who won six of his seven world championships with Mercedes, completed a blockbuster switch to F1 ri💙vals Ferrari o🐎ver the winter, but not before he thanked his former colleagues with unique leaving presents.
The project was kept top secret by Mercedes to ensure their staff did not find 🐭out before they received the specially commissioned artworks at the end of January.
Clark, one of the artists who was chosen for the job, couldn’t believe his eyes when an unexpected emai♊l landed in his inbox last October.
“I had a completely𓄧 random email from an agency that was handling the project, asking if I would be interested in working on a commission for a high-profile athlete and that’s all the information that was allowed to be given and I agreed,” Clark told wuqian0821.com.
as part of his leaving gifts to his teammates at . — Joel Clark (@JClarkArtist)For Clark, who has been a motorsport nut all of his life and a big 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Ayrton Senna fan, the chance to create a piece of art depicting Hamilton’s iconic comeback victory at the 2021 Sao Paulo Grand Prix, in Senna’s homeland,ꦡ was the stuff of dreams.
50-year-old Clark grew up in Brackley, where Mercedes’ F1 headquarters are based, aไnd a stone’s throw from Silverstone, where he got his first job as a vinyl sticker maker after leaving school aged 16.
“I’d only just got off the floor to the chair on🅺ly to fall straight back on the floor again,” he continued. “I’🃏m a huge [Ayrton] Senna fan so the combination of the two, and the whole emotions of being involved in what is one of the biggest stories in motorsport history.
“I grew up in Brackley ♔and my first job was at Silverstone where I learnt to work in vinyl for a sign company. We used to do lots of Touring Car teams back in 1990. So the whole full story for me. It was a hell of a project for me.”
Clark, who claims to be the only automotive artist who works with hand-cut vinyl, had around a mo🀅nth to complete his brief, which proved to be a challenge due to it being far removed from his usual comfort zone of depicting retro racing cars. He submitted four pieces in total, with his personal favourite also turning out to be Hamilton’s choice.
“Most of my automotive artwork is a lot more retro. I haven’t really gone past the 90s in terms of ꧙subject matter. So taking on a contemporary F1 car and just the sheer detail on the things is crazy,” he explained.
“On a creative level, that was the challenge. That was my favourite, that was also Lewis’s and the agency’s favourite choice, so we were all o🎀n the same table there. I guess just to capture what was such an amazing moment in Lewis’s time with Mercedes.”
A full circle moment
Having spent six years studying at Central Saint Martins art colleg♑e in the early-to-mid nineties, Clark worked in advertising for 20 years. However, his itch for his true passion never left and he continued to dabble in his motorsport artwork.
The turning point came in 2013 at Kop Hill Climb, a local classic car meet, where Clark sold out most of his work. That prompted ♒him to pursue what has now been a 10-year journey.
Clark’ꩲs unique fa𝔉voured medium was inspired by the skills he picked up in his first job, which he now combines with his love for motorsport.
“♊Being 1990 all the logos that had to be made for cars all had to be hand-cut, because there were no computers to scan any logos in and all that sort of stuff,” Clark said of his first job.
“I would turn up Monday morning after a race weekend, whoever had crashed would say ‘we need another four Dunlop stickers’, or ‘🐓we nജeed another 20 Michelin stickers’, so I’d have to cut those out by hand.”
Explaining his love for vinyl as a medium, Clark added: “When it comes to the automotive art, it’s obviously got the same finish as the real car you are depicting, so it has a unique qualityꩲ in that sense.
“You’ve got natural reflections fro﷽m whichever environment the artwork hangs in, which then blends with the highlights which I’ve put into the artwork. That extends to when I do bits of Fo🗹rmula 1, where I extenuate all the highlights and lowlights across it. Because you are just working with bold, solid colours, I just love the impact it has and the idea of breaking down everything into a coloured shape.
“Essentially I’m making a jigsaw but I’m also making the pieces of the jigsaw for each piece. Then it literally goes to a car body shop and has a clear coat, so it has the sam💦e fini𒉰sh again as the real car I’m depicting.”
On a personal level, Hamilton’s commission and the e🍷xposure which follows could 🐠be a “make-or-break” turning point for Clark, who acknowledges he is a “relatively unknown artist”.
“At the moment, in a cost of livin🌠g crisis, not many people are buying work from relatively unknown artists. For me it’s kind of m🌳ake-or-break,” he admitted.
“Without getting into a ಌsob story,🐼 at the moment I’m month-to-month not knowing if I’m going to be paying rent each month. And so this exposure for me - it’s not an exaggeration - is make-or-break really. It’s beyond important.”
For Clark, it is “without a doubജt” the highlight of his career.
“In terms of the significance of the pr🔯oject and just as a moment, not just in motorsport history but cultural history, I’d never have dreamt it,” he said.
"As an artist who does a lotꦦ of motorsport ar🧔t, to be commissioned by a racing driver would be amazing, by an F1 driver even better, but then the greatest of all time, it is off the scale. Beyond a dream come true.”
You can see more of Clark’s work on his.
Lewis regularly attends Grands Prix for wuqian0821.com around the world. Often reporting on the🗹 action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of the people who matter in the sport.
