Unit Verse

Art on Our Walls II: 28 Bicycles

• by Andy 1 year ago
• 1 Comment

Now adorning a wall in my office and in full view of anyone entering our front door is a piece that I commissioned from Kyle Steed, an artist and designer from here in the Dallas, TX area. It’s entitled, “28 Bicycles.”

When I commissioned the piece Kyle asked if I had anything in mind for the subject of the work. I told him to do whatever he thought was appropriate; full license, in other words. I’m excited by the fact that what he came back with was a subject close to my enthusiasms and relevant to my life, for I am an avid cyclist.

The artist’s comment on this work:

“The poster consists of 28 different bicycles all a little different from the other. The layout is very structured and organized in contrast to the hand-drawn imperfections of the bicycles. Thinking about life as a journey and using the bicycle to symbolize how we are traveling, we all get there a little differently. But ultimately we all end in the same place. The bicycle then just becomes another fragment from our journey and we are left with all our memories. The beauty is in the journey, the challenges and imperfections, not in the things we own along the way.”

The fixture.

As seen through my office glass door at the entrance to Unit. Nice shadowbox effect :)

It’s a large-ish work: 32”x40”. This is precisely the scale of work I wanted, as even though it is on my personal office wall, it’s a wall that is clearly visible just as people enter our office (even seen through the glass door to my office). So it needed to be of a certain size.

Even the conspicuous tear at the bottom is part of it and, for me, an appealing feature of the work, as it was the result of the artist’s full engagement in creation (he was not aware that he had torn the paper while working on a section of the piece), as Kyle explains in his notation on the back of his work.

The artist’s message on the back: “This piece represents the movement and order of our world. All are not the same. We each get to where we’re going a little differently. But ultimately we all arrive at the end. The tear represents the unplanned surprises/accidents/blessings in life. Thank you so much for believing in what I do.”

I’m really happy with how Kyle used full license to create something cool and I’m excited to have the work on display in the Unit Interactive office.

Kyle Steed:
Twitter: @kylesteed
Blog: kylesteed.com
Shop: shop.kylesteed.com