Car Parts: Laurie Peek

“‘Car Parts’ is a series I started photographing in the fall of 2012. Attracted to the light and abstract pattern in a reflection on a parked car door, I began noticing these ‘paintings’ on cars everywhere and I set out to collect them. For me these dream-like images combine elements of gestural energy from Abstract Expressionism with the bright colors of Pop Art in a tribute to the glamour that American society has long associated with the automobile. They are akin to what John Chamberlain was doing with his metal sculptures of crushed cars. Coincidently, Chamberlain lived and worked for twenty years in my hometown of Sarasota, Florida, and I think we both responded similarly to the intense Florida sunshine and salt-air rusted metal.

“Looking for the extraordinary in the ordinary, the metal hoods, roofs, bumpers and doors are canvases for my photographic ‘paintings.’ Their bright colors, scrapes and dents speak to me and present enigmatic landscapes of the imagination, refracting reality, waiting quietly in plain sight to be discovered by those who are willing to slow down and observe these hidden vistas in a busy world.”

Laurie Peek is a fine art and documentary photographer with a knack for elevating the everyday. With an MFA in Photography from the Visual Studies Workshop / SUNY Buffalo, she worked at The George Eastman House Museum in Rochester, NY and then taught photography in Washington DC. Moving to New York City, she became a photo librarian for Sygma Photo News and then a photojournalist covering issues like toxic dumps, crime, politics, negligent landlords, as well as anti-nuke and other protest movements for publications that included The Village Voice, Brooklyn Paper, City Limits, The Progressive and NYTimes. As staff photographer for NY City, she documented the city’s community gardens, housing, and Mayor Ed Koch. Peek has exhibited widely in the Hudson Valley and NYC metro area where she is active in local civic and environmental causes.