Daryl Bibicoff is always on the move. At least, his art is. All of his pieces focus on motion and what it means, both visually and figuratively. His “personal passion for speed” rushes at viewers, compelling them into emotional action. Bibicoff’s work evokes time, space, and the flowering of seconds into something eternal. As an artist, years of creating a variety of images in a wide range of media have coalesced into his current “In Motion” series.
“My passion for art began at early when I was 8 years old. When my family watched TV, I often opted to draw characters from my imagination. In junior high and high school most of my elective choices were visual art courses which included drawing, painting, cartooning, photography, and calligraphy,” the Los Angeles artist explains.
When Bibicoff reached his senior year of high school he was offered a chance to enter the commercial art world through a trade school for graphic design and illustration.
Since then, his art work has evolved considerably, as he’s explored both two and three dimensional mediums including abstract expressionistic oil paintings, assemblages, “Sam Gilliam type multi-layered paintings” with overlapping geometric and organic shapes, ceramic works, and textural mixed media paintings created with acrylics, plaster, gravel and gauze. “In Motion is a progression from these works.
A recent solo show at Antenna Studio in Eagle Rock as part of the Northeast Los Angeles Artwalk fully displayed Bibicoff’s focus on motion. “The series evolved from painting cyclists on the move and sculpting devastated rocks and the juxtaposition of their environments,” he explains.
“It all began because I was constantly aware that everything I did routinely was always at a high speed. And, there was my personal passion for speed and endurance as a former athlete, plus the challenges I continue to experience as an artist, educator, and family man. Each of these autobiographical areas make me feel like I am always in motion. It’s bittersweet,” he notes.
Bibicoff discusses the idea of motion affecting life through his art, sharing a vision of the impact of high speed in everything around us. He believes blend of the powerful business community and techies are at the forefront of an incredibly high speed world. And the artist feels that the speed is taking over, immersing everyone.
“I believe people’s lives are being displaced. I feel what many of us call home is being taken over by the supreme powers of big business, technology, and commercialism. I have tremendous concern for the artistic losses we may face,” he says.
Bibicoff says his ideas spring from deep-rooted values that cherish the quality of life. “I am and always will be a passionate supporter of human interest that is not about bigger, wealthier, and faster progress.”
Working in a large, high ceilinged visual arts classroom as his studio, Bibicoff admires the work of other current artists such as Sam Gilliam, Anish Kapoor, Kristine Schomaker, Chenhung Chen, Bryan Ida, and Jeff Iorillo.
But his work is singularly his own, multi-media images that include motion-centered paintings, images of devastated rocks that represent both speed and neglect to the artist, motion digital images, and video.
His series expresses and expands the ideas of contemporary high speed. His vibrantly colored digital images evoke “warp speed” space travel images, stars, water, or light soaring beyond the possibility of human acknowledgment. They also evoke a spiritual quality, as if the motion he is depicting has pulled human viewers beyond their conventional existence. These images could be the patterns the soul makes as it is lifted from the body.
Other pieces are abstractions of outdoor scenes, a highway that the viewer hurtles along, an inspiration taken from a city-wide walk that shows DTLA’s South Spring Street, or bicyclists appearing to spin along the curvature of the earth. His riders wheel on, possibly oblivious to the human beings and grand scenery in a blur beside them. Abstract images of the view from a bike riders perspective “seduce viewers into seeing what I see while riding 25 miles an hour on my road bike,” Bibicoff says.
A photo taken while in line at the Saban Theater results in a white, exploding-star-like image, which the artist reveals reinforces his belief that even while waiting in line, life is moving too fast. Other kaleidoscopic images posit the same experience: there is great beauty in motion, there is a link perhaps through speed into someplace human beings have never traveled before. But the motion itself is a threat to our very existence and heritage.
Quick, before you hurtle off the planet, explore some of Bibicoff’s work. For more information see http://www.darylbibicoff.com/
Daryl’s work is exciting and dynamic. I especially enjoy the city street scenes the straddle reality and abstraction.