PAST IMPERFECT:Tony Sikorski's small corrugated cardboard sculptures deserve a European audience, writes BOB MONTGOMERY
ALTHOUGH NOT well known on this side of the Atlantic, Tony Sikorski is an artist who has established a high profile among the automotive art community in the US. Extraordinarily, he has established this reputation through the creation of small sculptures of corrugated cardboard.
Tony, whose father was a commercial artist, began his career in 1963 after graduation from Pittsburgh’s Ivy Art Institute of Graphic Design. He was initially employed by a commercial studio, which worked mainly for local advertising agencies.
Around 1969, he began to use corrugated cardboard to create unique miniature models of race cars. In 1976, he started his own business creating graphic designs and illustrations for companies throughout the US.
The ideas paid off, and Sikorski’s sculptures now see him invariably included in lists of America’s top 20 automotive artists.
Sikorski cites his father as his greatest artistic influence: “I got to watch him approach his work and solve design problems and then go on to execute a finished product,” he reflects.
And while his father remains his greatest single influence, he draws inspiration from the classic golden age American illustrators such as NC Wyeth and Maxfield Parrish, who brought new meaning to the combination of colour, light, shadow and imagination in the 1900s.
The choice of corrugated cardboard as a medium for automotive art is, to say the least, unusual.
Its use by Sikorski came about when he was seeking to make his work distinctive and expressive. “I was initially attracted by the texture and, of course, the rarity of corrugated cardboard as an artistic medium.”
Sikorski begins a work with rough pencil sketches which are then translated into a plan. Often a sculpture will contain several hundred individual pieces precisely cut and carefully laminated into the basic three-dimensional work. Finish and detailed graphics then follow before a carefully matched display platform is created to show the sculpture to its best advantage.
The number of hours taken to create one of these corrugated cardboard masterpieces can be colossal, and the ever-increasing number of awards won by Sikorski’s work attests to the extraordinary high standards he achieves. It didn’t take long for word of his unique sculptures to spread in automotive media circles, and examples of his work quickly became favourites at car shows throughout the US. Awards received to date include three consecutive coveted John Burgess Awards and several Best in Show Awards at Meadow Brook.
More recently, Sikorski has added sculptures in wood to his repertoire. These smaller, less-complex pieces allow him to meet the ever-growing demand for his work, although a major piece can still involve several hundred hours. Tony produces around 30 of the wood-based pieces and about 10 to 15 of the more complex corrugated card pieces each year.
Tony Sikorski’s unique work, which has a look which no other artist working today boasts, deserves to be better known on this side of the Atlantic.