Cyr’s first solo show in London, Common Ground, features paintings of vehicles seen on the streets of Berlin, Havana, New York, and Paris. Commercial vans, taxis, and delivery trucks—covered in graffiti, dents, and other marks of distinction—are a visual survey of their city’s workhorses.
He paints each vehicle with devoted attention to every imperfection and sign of age. Removing the context of landscape and placing the subjects on fields of solid colour givens them portrait-like importance. Cyr uses the subject of work vehicles to talk about place, “one can tell a lot about an area by the types of vehicles seen on its streets.”