Dimensions: 61x91cm
Painted: 1999
Materials: Acrylic on canvas board
Private collection
The story behind Southern California landscape
His first original photorealist painting, and he picked a BMX race. On purpose.
Bert Ernie was into BMX well before he was a painter. He bought the magazines, went to the races, and knew from the inside how hard the sport actually is. Meanwhile the photorealists getting attention at the time were known for what one critic called the chrome motorbike engine look: flawless technique with not much going on underneath. A dirt track and a pack of riders was about as far from that as he could get. Although for someone dodging the chrome-engine crowd, he’s painted an awful lot of sponsor logos, every one of them by hand.
The source was a double-page spread from an American BMX magazine covering the 1998 ABA So Cal Nationals. Grid ruled straight over the joined pages, scaled up onto canvas board, same as always. A small inset photo on the left of the spread was in the way, so he whited it out.
The berm was harder. It’s a big curved bowl of dirt with shadows running across it, and on a tired magazine page it was difficult to tell what was doing what. So he emailed the magazine and asked for the original photo. They sent it. He’d read it right the first time.
He also cleared out the grandstand, the tents and the crowd, and put sky there instead.
Then the title. Southern California Landscape. The words conjure palm trees and coastline, and he gave them to a BMX track. The landscape genre, with hay bales. He thought this was very funny. It is, a bit.
Up on the rim of the berm stands a man with a microphone who isn’t in the photo. That’s Bert Ernie, more or less, calling the race. He’s painted rough on purpose, so he sticks out against everything else. A joke and a statement at the same time. Mostly a joke.
The riders are excellent, the front two especially: faces, gear, the lean of the bikes into the turn. The shadows across the berm, the part that sent him to the magazine for help, are the best thing in it.
Source image of realism painting Southern California landscape
