The Kinetic Artwork Of Geoff Velazco Is Now Available In The Petrolicious Shop

The automotive artwork of Geoff Velazco is part of rare territory; it manages to reach and balance on that precarious place where conveying a sensation of speed with blurred colors and logos does not come at the expense of the final product looking like something from the racing game machine at the arcade. As a designer with decades of experience with international brands like GM, BMW, and Hyundai, Geoff has the chops to turn pretty much any object into something you’d want to look at rendered in oil on canvas, but he has made the (laudable) decision to tackle some of the greats. While these cars have been the object of many artists and car enthusiasts alike, Geoff’s unique take makes tread ground feel uncharted.

Whether working with oils or digitally, conveying the right feeling is paramount to each work achieving what Geoff has set out to do. Recalling a childhood’s best memories as brimming with the cars and racing enthusiasm instilled by an enthusiast father, Geoff aspires to create art that captures the emotional rumble we feel when one of our favorite cars douses our senses with the essence of movement and power. His wickedly kinetic style and vivid coloring do justice to the feeling of being there as the moment actually happened.

And while distilling the gusto of a powerful car into something that can be hung on a nail is what’s being strived for, that doesn’t mean each and every piece need be a scene from a race. The range of how he captures and frames his subjects makes for a good variety of work, though all have a shared foundation of what I’d term “vibrant urgency.” Whether it be a harried and hurried pitstop for a modern-era Ferrari F1 car or a more abstracted treatment of the iconic Gulf-liveried 917, all of Geoff Velazco’s pieces accomplish what he’s set out for them: the soul of the moment is harnessed, undiluted in its transference into two dimensions.

Beyond the delicious candy store colors and the cool cars that they form, the framing of the subject probably goes the furthest in establishing the overall feeling of speed that lives in this art. The tight, often cropped dimensions in which these legendary racing cars must live create a feeling of in-person experience: you’re looking through the bars of the guardrail, the crowd parts for a glimpse. It’s all very visceral, and in saying that, somehow doesn’t feel overdone either.

A selection of Geoff Velazco’s artwork can be found in the Petrolicious Shop.

Note: if ordering for shipment outside of the United States, or for custom size requests, please contact help@petrolicious.com