Apart from the product placement of the first Mercedes-Benz M-Class in the original “Jurassic Park” movie, do dinosaurs and cars have anything in common at all? Well, they are certainly both loved by elementary school boys (of all ages). They are desired by collectors, the rarest examples are worth their weight in gold, and the latter loves to burn the fossilised remains of the former in the form of high-octane gasoline, also known as dino juice. In short: dinosaurs and supercars are a match made in heaven. And gallerist Juliette Loughran, who comes from family of avid car collectors, had just the right intuition when she decided to showcase the latest series of paintings by artist Dave White at Kiklo Spaces – the automotive treasure chest where we celebrated the 30th anniversary of the McLaren F1 almost exactly a year ago.
Produced in secrecy over 18 months, ‘Extinct’ is the series Dave White has spent all his life researching. “As a child I would endlessly draw dinosaurs, visualising their movement”, says White. “This series hopes to connect and resonate with the viewer, imprinting the beauty of what could be lost in our world today.” In order to create it, the artist went back to the drawing board, filling dozens of sketchbooks working from skeletons and specimens. Underneath each painting lies the under sketch which forms the crux of these works. Built up over many sessions, these layers form the painting, giving it life and movement where there is none. “Like many youngsters, White has never lost his sense of wonder for dinosaurs and the scale of these works, some of which are over 7ft tall”, says Juliette Loughran, “His use of rich expressive oils helps to create the same sense of drama and awe.”
At Kiklo Spaces, White’s paintings did not only find the vast, light and elegantly modernist exhibition space they deserve – they also interact with a selection of cars from the Kiklo collection, including the mythical ‘Ueno Clinic’ McLaren F1 GTR that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995 and a fleet of rarer-than-rare Porsches. And while the T-Rex and his sharp-toothed companions have long been extinct, we hope that these dino-juice-burning unicorns will still roam the face of the Earth for a little bit longer.
