Ian Cook is a contemporary British artist, known for his unique form of creating artwork – painting with radio controlled cars, actual car tyres and toy car wheel instead of paintbrushes. Hence the hashtag #PaintwithCars.

Graduating with a first class degree in Fine Art Painting, Ian has a quirky edge and has always described his artwork as ‘a friendly explosion of colour’. His unique process of painting started for 3 main reasons;

1. Ian is a car and motorsports enthusiast,

2. He has trained and always wanted to be an artist,

3. For Christmas in 2006, he was bought a radio-controlled car and was told: “Don’t take it down the studio and don’t get paint on it!” and so he decided to do just that.

Since 2007, Ian has combined his passion for cars and art, creating a range of artworks and projects. Highlights include painting a portrait Lewis Hamilton the size of a 3-storey building, breaking a Guinness World record and having artwork featured on Top Gear.

Ian and his fleet of paint splattered cars can be found at popular motoring shows and events in the UK and internationally, when not painting in the POPBANGCOLOUR studio.

Painting with cars is quite simple – paint is applied onto the canvas and the cars and wheels are run through the paint. However, prior to any painting being created, there is a great deal of preparation in choosing the correct image/s, doing a few tweaks (flipped, removing backgrounds if requested etc.) or mocking up an completely new image if this is what the client requires.

Artworks are generally created to commission or to appeal to the audience who are likely to be at the event, whether this be at BTCC, Goodwood, Silverstone or elsewhere.

The first artwork was created live in a shopping centre in Wolverhampton. This was covered by the local media and then picked up by the national media. This led to featuring at various motoring events, when at the 2008 Goodwood Festival of Speed, an employee from M&C Saatchi spotted Ian’s work…

…and so a giant portrait of Lewis Hamilton was commissioned for Reebok – the size of a 3 storey building! This was displayed next to Tower Bridge in the run up to the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix.

Did that lead to Lewis Hamilton’s win? Who knows. What we do know is that year Ian quit his job as an art teacher and became a full-time artist.