Cycle News

INTERVIEW P58 ARTIST DAVID UHL designs. Then in 1998 I started doing vintage style paintings for Harley-Davidson and I've been at it ever since. What inspired you to make motorcycling a major focus of your work? I've always enjoyed motorcycling and then I just fell in love with the old black and white photographs in the archives. I decided to paint them and the next thing you know it took off and here I am Mr. Motorcycle artist [laughs]. Do you have any ideas how many motorcycle paintings you've done at this point? Probably 400 to 500, I think. A lot. I do a lot of aviation art as well and I did the program covers for Indy for a couple of years. I've also done work for Shelby American and currently I'm doing work on the history of wine making in Napa with the Mondavi family. I guess I would say I'm more of an archival artist rather than just motorcycles. Who are your influences? The guys from the turn of the century - John Singer Sargent, Sorolla, a lot of the Russian masters, you know, people that could paint from life realistically better than anyone. I went to museums and reversed engineered the painting. That's how I was taught. What format do you favor? I work mostly with oil painting. I do watercolors as well, but not that often. I don't know if this is a polite question or not, but how long Uhl's work has been licensed by Harley-Davidson. does it typically take you to do a painting? About a week - sometimes a little longer, sometimes less. If they take a lot longer than that something's wrong. Obviously no one likes to be pigeonholed, but are you okay with being primarily a painter working with motorcycle-related subjects? It's been good to me. I have a lot of fans of my work; a lot of collectors and it's a great niche. I don't mind at all. In terms of the art circles, museums and high art, yeah I want to be more than just a motorcycle artist because I'd like to end up ultimately with my stuff in museums and places like that. And as an artist you never want to be stuck somewhere in any one genre, so you're always moving around trying different things. How does one of your paintings start? Most of the time I look through the archives. And collections and find an interesting old photo of things that have happened in the past and turn them into paintings. Sometimes I'll find some neat historical elements and then set up models and then recreate it. Most of the stuff is pre-1940 or '50 and all the way back to the 1800s. This one [pointing to "Steampunk Seduction"] is like 1700s. Do you have any particular paintings you've done that are your favorites? Sometimes, but usually it's your most recent one that's your favorite. Do you feel you're still improving as an artist? Oh no doubt. I will till I keel over. That's paramount. More than money, more than anything, you've got to keep changing as an artist. That's true art. So many other artists find a niche and they start making tons of money and they get known for something and that's it. That's where they stop, but that won't be me. You can view more of Uhl's work at www.uhlstudios.com. CN

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