The Perez Bros: Firme

Charlie James Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by The Perez Bros, a Los Angeles-based duo whose work celebrates and embodies the lowriders and car clubs of L.A.’s Chicano community. The title of the show – Firme –  is used to emphatically describe impressive cars, and these works elicit the same response. The detailed, monochrome paintings in bright, eye-catching colors evoke the murals that often grace lowrider hoods and doors. This kinship between canvas and car is amplified by collaged bits of chrome and mirror and a slick, metallic finish. The suite of paintings comes together in the gallery like prized lowriders gathered at a car show, collectively paying tribute to the artistry and pride of lowriding. 

Executed by both brothers in tandem, the monochromatic, tone-on-tone acrylic paintings in this show take their color directly from the candied gloss color palette of lowriders. The brothers choose subjects from a personal archive of photographs, gathered over a lifetime immersed in the lowrider scene. Many of the works include sculptural elements familiar to car culture: engraved chrome trim pieces run across compositions, mirrors are tiled below tires as if to provide the viewer a glimpse of a gleaming undercarriage. In this way, the works transcend their status as painting and become like cars themselves, adorned with precise murals and finished with a sparkling resin glaze. 

Three paintings in particular reflect the idea of cars at a lowrider exhibition: Pukama, Big badass 67, and Tropical Punch depict parked cars, with mirrors running along the bottom register as if to offer the viewer a better look. It almost seems as if the 1967 Impala in Big badass 67 can be simultaneously viewed from multiple angles, a trick of perspective often employed in shows to reveal as much chrome as possible. This particular car belongs to a member of their father’s car club, and extra reverence is bestowed upon it by protective velvet ropes. In fact all of the cars depicted are known by the brothers; the documentary angle of these paintings serves to celebrate individual cars and owners within the community. 

Elsewhere, cars are in action, out on the streets flashing elaborate hydraulic displays as they bounce and lean. Low and slow is the name of the game, unless you’ve stopped for a hopping contest in front of a crowd, as they have in Elysian Park II. The compositions have been distilled to their essence – everything comes back to the cars – but still convey a sense of community pride, not only in the lowriders but in the people and culture that surround them. A passenger waves a Mexican flag in Latino Heat, Pink Panther pays homage to family in a plaque displaying the name of its car club, and La Pacific II shouts out the City of Huntington Park, all small but specific details that remind us that lowriding is an art born out of resistance to the assimilationist impulse, amplifying the creative spirit of a community rather than dampening it. 

The Perez Bros are known for realist paintings of lowriders and lowrider culture that distill the cars and observers into abstract spaces free from background detail. Our Style car club, however, breaks from this tradition, offering a view into the wider world behind the cars in perhaps their most personal painting to date. The featured 1961 Impala belongs to their father, and the gathered crowd is made up of members of the car club they grew up in. Bringing the surrounding neighborhood, where the crowd has gathered before heading to a car show, into the composition emphasizes the communal and family roots of lowriding. This first fully realized background is an exciting new development in the brothers’ practice. 

The Perez Bros have also curated Sick Ass Foos, a presentation of thirty-four artists that will run concurrently in the downstairs gallery. Working in a variety of media, these artists are the friends and inspirations that make up the brothers’ artistic community.