Born To Race | Mark Davies

Born To Race

A cracking sequel to last Novembers' very successful body of work, 'Retrospective 2' launched on November 21st comprising of an exciting set of images that invite you to step inside the eye of Mark's mind and take you back to a great era that breathes nostalgia and positivity!

A Note From The Artist

Ok so if you follow my work you can probably tell that I love cars and given any opportunity will drop one or several into a scene! The intention for my ‘Retrospective’ ongoing body of work is one where I invite the audience to step inside the eye of my mind as I revisit memories from my formulative years and early adult-hood, the ones with minimal responsibility! As a kid growing up, I always loved each car that my parents got as I appreciated how bloody hard they worked but I was never one that was itching to be able to drive. I was happy to be passenger in my mates cars in my late teens – thinking of that I am amazed that I am still here! (you lot know who you are!)So, when I finally decided that I wanted to drive at 20 I got myself a blue Vauxhall Nova SR – she was a thing of beauty even though I had no idea how to drive her. I still remember the price, £3750 and the worst price for insurance was £5000, third party fire and theft of course! I can still recall taking the keys and going to sit in it on the drive and listening to music – Speed Garage, House and Hip Hop at the time. I loved it yet I had no idea, embarrassing but I didn’t even know you had to put the clutch down to change gear. Luckily my dad told me before I set foot on my first lesson with him, another vivid and cherished memory.

I passed second time around after randomly being accused of road rage on my first test as the examiner thought I said ‘damn him’ not ‘damn it’ when I braked to let a car through who couldn’t be arsed to give me my right of way. Anyway, a cracking period of time followed cruising around in my Nova on the loop of Sandy, Potton and Biggleswade in Bedfordshire. I modified so much of the car, I was obsessed. Working mainly nights at the time I would always take the bloody wheels off just so I could clean the brake callipers on each wash, I’m sure I’m not alone. Two moments I remember are painting the rev and speedo needles blue and then setting off to realise that they dried stuck, so I had to ‘kangaroo jump’ all the way down the road to set them free! Another was having the car lowered and bigger wheels (Wolfrace Genesis 15’s) before heading out with my mates crammed into the back. Actually, god I hadn’t even passed my test then as my dad was passenger to take the car back. The end result was the tyres getting buggered from the car being so low that they rubbed and grinded. You could still hear it even over ‘Spin Spin Sugar!’ Great memories.

‘Born To Race’ is set in front of the iconic arches of Madeira Drive in Brighton – a ‘go to’ location for car meet ups and cruises. I have set it as the light is fading to help the neon’s to shine and the car lights and smoke from the burn outs come into their own. You have probably seen from earlier pieces such as ‘Petrolheads’ that I love to unite a group of cars into a scene and this is no different other than I wanted to inject some drama and movement into the piece, to challenge myself and hopefully make the image even better. The lairy ‘Scooby’ and the worshipped ‘Cossie’ spin in the foreground in a form of dance amongst the smoke, portraying that need to compete and race at any opportunity!

The back row features a cracking mix of cult cars from the classic hot hatches that are the Golf GTI and the Peugeot 205 GTI along with the brilliant Ford Fiesta XR2i and then the highly modified Vauxhall Corsa and Renault’s pocket rocket GT5 Turbo! There were so many others that I wanted to include but I wanted to ensure impact rather than making them too small. The potential for spin offs (excuse the pun) is massive so keep close! At the time of writing this there is a call to ban sales of all new petrol and diesel cars in ten years which whilst I understand why, it does make you wonder if scenes like this will just be a distant memory. In the meantime, I hope I’ve just ignited a few amongst all the boy and girl racers out there!