MY JOURNEY TO THE FINE ART WORLD DENNIS MATHEWSON

In the 1990s, my custom paint shop, Cosmic Airbrush, worked with many fine artists in Hawaii. In addition, we serviced many well-known fine artists involving clear coat applications and repairs. As a result, I got to know many artists and folks associated with the galleries.

During that time, it was the mania of custom painting motorcycles, with the shop being slammed with custom and stock painting motorcycles. The internet was still new back then, so most of our fame and business flourished from word of mouth, advertising, and promotions at car and bike shows showcasing our motorcycle paint jobs. The motorcycle era in the 90s was like the t-shirt era in the 80s. We employed seven guys painting who in our shop painted five to seven thousand parts yearly. The thought of my artwork in a gallery was entirely outside of my plans at that time.

I also worked closely with Iwata, PPG, House of Kolor, and ALSA paint Corp. at the time, and, of course, SEMA was always a big deal, so I worked at and promoted products for the booths at SEMA for those companies.

One day I dropped off one of my paintings at a commercial scanning shop, and a gallery owner happened to see it. The painting was for Iwata, destined for a catalog cover. It was a tiki hot rod done on a metal panel. Back in those days, hardly anyone was doing that kind of artwork. Therefore, when a gallery owner saw it, he asked the employees who did this, which led to the owner contacting me about hanging some of my work in his gallery. The problem was that I didn’t have anything; I just did that one painting for Iwata. At that time, we were so swamped painting motorcycles that the gallery thing could not have sounded less attractive. You hang it in their gallery, wait for them to sell it, and then wait for them to pay you. I had bikes and helmets stacked up in the shop waiting to be painted, and I got paid when the job was completed. So, why go the gallery route was my thought. Subsequently, I stalled it off until my wife encouraged me to hang some art in the gallery.