CONCORD, N.C., March 21, 2019—On Thursday, Axalta Coating Systems' 2019 media day put the company's immaculate, 36,000-square foot customer experience center on display.
It also featured some iconic automotive art.
While the gathering touched on collision repair topics such as the fact there's subjectivity in color matching (which, Axalta notes, a spectrophotometer can help), artist Peter Maier arguably stole the show in Charlotte.
Marier showed off his "Stingray 1959" painting, which utilized Axalta waterborne paint on a massive fabricated aluminum panel. Maier has gained widespread acclaim for painting iconic figures like Abraham Lincoln and rocker Keith Richards in a manner many consider "impossibly real." But many of Maier's paintings are automotive themed, and feature a multi-layering process that gives the pieces a 3-dimensional effect.
Maier once made a living helping design vehicles like the 1980 Cadillac Seville. But, by age 35, he left that behind to largely devote his life to making automotive art. Why, you ask?
"Being a former car designer, and a fine artist, I feel [the automobile] is one of the best technological inventions of our time," Maier told FenderBender. "It has changed the planet. But it's never been shown as a piece of fine art.
"I see [vehicles] as fine art on the road."
