Kenyon Motor Co: The Art Portfolio of Tom Kenyon
375VX, linoleum block print on newspaper
Tom Kenyon is a car and automotive racing enthusiast who is using a combination of collage, paint, sculpture, and other mixed media to weave a fictional narrative surrounding his grandfather’s car parts shop, Kenyon Motor Co. The artist’s body of work can be appreciated from an individual perspective, and as a complete narrative.
It’s really interesting to browse through Tom’s art portfolio and see the different ways that the artist approaches his subject matter. Though some aspects of the history of Kenyon Motor Co. are fictionalized, there is an undeniable reverence for the family company and history as it really existed, and it’s this reverence that draws the viewer in and makes the works so relatable.
From a technical perspective, Tom does a great job of capitalizing on the nature of each medium to create a sense of overall cohesion even through wildly different aesthetics. Tom’s prints and collages are quite visually different from the images in his dreams of speed gallery, and yet these two galleries feel like they inform one another.
Special 49 on the Salt Flats (video still), model of Special 49, wood, plastic