I Can’t Drive is the culmination of print-based artist Poppy Williams’ foray into multi-coloured reductionist printing. Williams’ fourth solo exhibition at China Heights presents a reimagined approach to previous methodologies with emphasis on the relationship between colours and layering with elements of her black and white line-work grounding the series in her motif aesthetic.
Williams presents a series of prints featuring caricatures of automobiles heavily referential to the ‘Hot Wheels’ toy franchise. The exaggerated colours and forms draw upon the heightened senses of youth, stirring nostalgic sentiments often associated with the accoutrements of childhood. Each piece is an individual ode to a vehicle, some with comical plumes of smoke, others with humorous sponsorships such as Lays and Smith’s chips, popular snacks of the lunchtime playground. The varying styles of the subjects speak to the way in which the relationships one has to automobiles changes over the course of a lifetime, from playfully natured toy to symbols of status or engineering feasts to be admired.
As vessels of memories, automobiles are companions to many of life’s milestones. Marriages, coming of age signifiers such as first cars, personal encounters with friends and lovers can more often than not be physically paired to the vehicles of that time. Memory is much like the printing block, what we take away from it is fragmentary, losing fidelity over the duration of its use. Moving through the space, the body of work builds an environment of colour, formalism and warm familiarity. Williams invites us into a spectacle of humoured reflection, with the title, I Can’t Drive, a light hearted nod to the truth that the artist indeed cannot drive.