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InspirationArt & Culture

Out on the Road: Paintings to celebrate our love of the automobile

Described as painting in a style that combines American realism with appropriation art, Jessica Brilli takes us down a long and nostalgic road with her series of automobile-inspired paintings. Paying homage to popular vintage cars, this series follows her usual style that celebrates a different era when smartphones didn't exist and photographs were captured on analogue cameras.

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Front view of a black vintage Cadillac with a green windscreen shade, painted in a style combining American realism with appropriation art

Whether parked on a driveway, baking in the Californian sunshine or cruising down a highway at night – the cadillac cars and original minis paint a picture of a time when we really could be kings and queens of the road.

Based in Quincy, Massachusetts, Brilli has been drawing and painting since childhood. She earned her BFA in painting at the University of Rhode Island, where she studied with acclaimed artists Robert Dilworth, William Klenk, and Barbara Pagh. Her paintings have been purchased by numerous private collectors, and several are displayed at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University where she works as senior graphic designer.

To discover more about her work, visit www.jbrilli.com.

A vintage car parked in a driveway between brick buildings, painted in Jessica Brilli's style combining American realism with appropriation art
Night-time service station scene with glowing neon signs, parked cars and figures rendered in bold blues, greens and orange brushstrokes
A white vintage car viewed from above in a multi-storey car park, with glowing red and orange lights mounted on the dark ceiling above
White vintage Cadillac parked against a burnt orange desert landscape under a pale blue sky in Jessica Brilli's painting
Multiple cars driving on a highway at dusk, painted in warm and cool tones with an impressionistic style
A white vintage car viewed from above, parked on a grey surface with blue-toned buildings in the background, painted in a soft, nostalgic style
Black vintage car viewed from above, partially submerged in snow and water by a frozen river landscape in Jessica Brilli's painterly style
A dark vintage car driving beneath an elevated highway overpass under a blue sky with white clouds
White vintage car parked on a vast terracotta-coloured plain beneath rolling hills under a pale blue sky
Cars travel beneath a dark underpass in Jessica Brilli's atmospheric painting of nighttime urban traffic
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