A new phenomenon took to the streets earlier this month in the form of the inaugural Art Car Parade. Commissioned artists, Baroness Von Reichardt and Mr Spunky of Chiswick's Treatment Rooms, created the 'Tiki Love Truck' which won them the award of 'Best Make Over'.

The Treatment Rooms were one of a number of artists from all over the country who were specially commissioned to transform vehicles into weird and wonderful mobile artworks to take part in the event.

Michael Trainor, Curator of Art Cars 2007 explains, “An Art Car is a drivable installation - any vehicle which has been re-imagined, re-styled, re-modelled, or completely metamorphosed by an artist."

He continued "Vehicles can be decorated, sculpted, adorned, illuminated or bejewelled to create “transports of delight” in the shape of cars, trucks, bikes, mobility scooters or even pedal or solar-powered contraptions!”

For their Art Car, The Treatment Rooms created ‘The Tiki Love Truck' "a magical mosaic / ceramic adorned automobile, driven by two hula girls who give out messages of love and peace as they drive by."

The original concept to bring an Art Car Parade to the UK was conceived by Liz Pugh and John Wassell from Walk the Plank, one of the UK’s leading Arts organisations specialising in outdoor performance. Art Car Parades are a huge phenomenon in the USA, with the first, and by far the largest, in Houston with 250 Art Cars on show, attracting over 200,000 spectators annually.

September 21, 2007