I have no idea what stirred the inner recesses of my mind and re-awoke me to the works of Dion Pears. Like most of us (I suspect) the walls of my flats/houses have been obscured over the years by the photographic images of Klemantaski, Rowe, Eves et al and the artistic works of de la Maria, Fearnley, Turner etc.
One artist that has never had the dubious honour to hang in my personal gallery is Dion Pears. His works were never "quite right", too simplistic and never gave that all-important impression of speed and authenticity, bluntly - 12th birthday card art.
I'm sure that this is besmirching his memory and doing him an injustice. Looking at his work today it has aged well, perhaps Worthing's answer to Geo Ham. Not too much comes up on the 'net, I always understood that he suffered with agoraphobia so most of his art was drawn from his mind rather than trackside experience. One explanation given is that, despite being house-bound in his later years (and he died young), he would take a photographic backdrop of a circuit and the (car) subject of the work would be wheeled into his front garden for him to capture the detail. Seems unlikely to me, conjures up images of a Chaparral 2F being man-handled into the front garden of a modest South Coast bungalow whilst he finishes off the Paddock Hill bend backdrop on canvas - and the neighbours' curtains twitching...
Do we know anything more about the man ?
