Dimensions: 61x91cm
Painted: 1999
Materials: Acrylic on canvas board
Private collection
The story behind Southern California landscape
The first original photorealist painting — and the subject matter was a deliberate provocation.
BMX racing was in the blood. The magazines were bought, the races attended, the difficulty of the sport understood from the inside. When it came time to choose a subject for a serious photorealist work, the choice of BMX felt genuinely anti-art world. The photorealist painters of the time were celebrated for what one critic called the chrome motorbike engine look — technical mastery as an end in itself, devoid of conceptual value. A BMX race was the opposite of that world.
The source image came from a double page spread in an American BMX magazine — the 1998 ABA So Cal Nationals. A grid was drawn directly over the joined pages and scaled up onto canvas board. The two riders dominating the frame captured everything that made the sport visually compelling.
The title completed the joke. Southern California Landscape — the most loaded, stereotypical cultural shorthand for So Cal, applied to a BMX race. Landscape as genre, subverted.
The source spread had a smaller inset photo on the left side that needed to be eliminated. Whiteout handled that. The larger problem was the berm — a complex three-dimensional bowl shape with shadows that were genuinely difficult to interpret from a photocopied magazine page. The solution was to email the magazine directly and ask for the original image. They sent it back. The interpretation had been correct.
One addition was made that had no basis in the source photograph — a crude figure in the background holding a microphone. A self-insertion. The commentator calling the action from the sideline, painted deliberately rough against the precision of everything around it. A statement and a joke in equal measure.
Source image of realism painting Southern California landscape
