ARTIST STEVE MALONEY MOTORS INTO MICHIGAN WITH WORKS OF NASCAR METAL AT THE GILMORE CAR MUSEUM NEAR KALAMAZOO

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ARTIST STEVE MALONEY MOTORS INTO MICHIGAN WITH WORKS OF NASCAR METAL AT THE
GILMORE CAR MUSEUM NEAR KALAMAZOO

Eight pieces from This is Where the Rubber Meets the Road to headline
museumıs White Lightnı & Rollinı Thunder exhibit, starting May 1

April 21, 2010 (New York, NY) ­ Is there an art to stock car racing? In the
hands of American Pop Artist Steve Maloney, there is. The Michigan native
turned California artist will exhibit eight works of mixed media from his
This is Where the Rubber Meets the Road series at the Gilmore Car Museum in
Hickory Corners, Michigan beginning May 1, 2010. Wall-mounted and created
from dented, dinged-up and otherwise distressed pieces of actual NASCAR
automobiles, Maloneyıs art will headline White Lightnı & Rollinı Thunder, a
special museum exhibit to run through October 30, 2010.

The White Lightnı & Rollinı Thunder show will be a homecoming for Maloney, a
native of Kalamazoo less than a 30 minutes drive by car from Hickory
Corners. Indeed, the artist spent his first 49 years in ³K-Zoo,² at one
point running an eponymous menıs clothing store at the corner of South
Street and the Burdick Mall in the Downtown section of the city.  While
fashion retailing and manufacturing were his callings, automobile racing was
always Maloneyıs passion, which he pursued with amateur abandon both as a
fan and a three-time racer in the Baja Mexican 1000 back in the early
1970ıs.

³Iıve always felt the only way to capture the combustible energy and chaos
of NASCAR is with the very automobiles that make it happen,² says Maloney of
This is Where the Rubber Meets the Road. The exhibited works will include
the grandly scaled Maloney 500 (2005), created from seven authentic NASCAR
front-end clips and other mediums mounted on board-backed canvas, and the
smaller Snap, Crackle, and Crunch (2005), a combination of NASCAR sheet
metal, copper tubing and acrylic on canvas. All the pieces pack a wallop,
with the hazards of the NASCAR track brought to life through actual
scratches, scrapes, tire marks and the screeching commercialism that reveal
the dynamism and danger of automobile racing.  ³If you look close enough²
Maloney says, ³youıll discover some of the rubber from the road.  Bits of
Goodyear stuck in the front grille.  I swear these front ends smelled like
the race when I first got them.²

In the White Lightnı & Rollin Thunder exhibit, Maloney will share the stage
with cars driven by the most iconic names of stock car racing, including Ned
Jarret, Johnny Benson, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Randy Sweet, Gail
Cobb, and ³Tiger² Tom Pistone. The show will also feature the movie car
driven by Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder, and much more.

Maloneyıs pop artwork celebrates the audacity, exuberance and originality of
American culture, particularly in advertising.  Some of his inspiration came
from artist John Chamberlain but the departure begins when Steve transforms
and fractures real racecar parts with todayıs brands and logos.  His 26
piece This is Where the Rubber Meets the Road series has enjoyed wide
exposure, with an exhibit at The Petroleum Museum in Midland, Texas in 2007
and a first-of-its-kind showing at the 50th anniversary running of the
Daytona 500 in 2008, with Maloney stationed trackside creating original
works for charitable auction as the racecars ripped around the track.

The Gilmore Museum is nestled on 90 landscaped acres in Hickory Corners,
midway between Kalamazoo, Battle Creek and Grand Rapids, Michigan. More than
200 extraordinary vehicles spanning more than a century of automotive
heritage are tucked in barns and historic buildings, ranging from an 1899
Locomobile to a Tucker ı48, a Model T Ford to the muscle cars of the 1960s.
The museum is home to the Classic Car Club of America, the Pierce-Arrow
Museum, The Franklin Collection and the Tucker Historical Collection. The
museum is open daily from May through October. For more details (269)
671-5089; www.gilmorecarmuseum.org

For more information about Steve Maloney, please call (858) 947-8165 or
visit http://www.artbymaloney.com.

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