Markus Haub was born and raised in Germany. His interest in cars goes back into his childhood, and he remembers himself drawing cars as far back as when he was 12 years old. Not surprisingly, he went on to study Transportation Design at the University of Applied Arts in Pforzheim.
He started his career working as a designer for the Volkswagen Group, where he participated in various design projects for Audi, VW, Seat, Lamborghini and Bentley, and later joined Renault, working in the newly opened Advanced Design Studio in Barcelona. Inspired by the city’s architecture, street-art and graffiti, he began painting as a hobby, to counterbalance his more structured work as a designer. His first paintings, however, were neither of cars nor of the cityscapes he’s also well-known for, but were based on images of Milla Jovovich in the movie The Fifth Element.
Following a two-year period in Renault’s Satellite Studio in Paris, Haub returned to Barcelona, but found he no longer enjoyed his work as much. After more than ten years as car designer, he was drawn to doing different things, so he left his job at Renault to work as a freelance designer and artist. He now splits his time between Barcelona and Mainz, Germany, and maintains a photo blog (www.formfreu.de) as a kind of visual online diary combining his love for cars, art and design. A car aficionado himself, his collection includes a 1977 Ferrari 308 GT4, in which he participates in classic car events and rallies, and three Porsches: a 1993 964, a 1968 F-modell and a 1970 F-modell, which he plans to convert to a custom car.
In “Racing Legends”, a series originally started in 2008, Haub creates mixed-media works featuring images of iconic racing cars from the 60s and 70s.
His art is a mixture of photography and digital and manual working techniques; His creative process always starts with a photo, which he takes himself on racetracks and classic car events. He then digitally manipulates it, cutting and cropping to get the composition, applying effects, and adding text, before bringing it onto canvas using a collage technique.
Finally, the manual process starts: Haub scratches, renders and paints using different tools and materials, including acrylic and fluorescent paints, pencils, wax, pencil, and glue. To finish, he applies a thick varnish, giving the surface depth and structure. Reactions between the materials allow for the “creative accidents” which make each piece unique. In his own words, “it’s a game of creation and destruction and creation again”.
The initial “Racing Legends” series was first shown at Gentlemen Drive, a private luxury car club near Barcelona. The exhibition later moved to the famous Meilenwerk (today Classic Remise), a classic car center in Düsseldorf, Germany, and the world’s largest automobile museum, the Cité de l’Automobile, Musée National – Collection Schlumpf in Mulhouse, France.
The “Racing Legends” series now contains almost 500 pieces, most of which are sold. Haub’s work is featured and can be purchased on http://speedstar-gallery.com, through which he can also be contacted for custom orders.
You can also find out more about his work on http://markushaub.com/.
