Cheryl Kelley's hyper-real super cars are a chromey Friday treat

Texan painter Cheryl Kelley can’t get enough of chrome and the iridescent paintwork that coats the world’s fastest cars. Since childhood, she’s been obsessed with beautiful motor vehicles and has made it her life’s work to render them with her own bare hands and rich, thick layers of oil paint. “I played in the dirt with Hot Wheels cars when I was a small child and was fascinated by their curves. Now I own a ’77 ’Vettte,” she says.

Cheryl’s work deals with the idea of cars as art and is motivated by the belief that we’ve forgotten the simple, basic pleasure of driving fast for the sake of it. “We’re losing the joy of driving, the joy of big engine cars for speed’s sake. People choose cars for gas mileage or cargo space. It’s just boring.” I don’t even have a driving licence but I’m prepared to agree with Cheryl if it means getting behind the wheel of one of these glistening hyper-real masterpieces.