Louis Sidoli comes from an artistic Italian family and displayed an aptitude for art at an early age. However, rather than taking the traditional art school route, he carved out a successful career in the car industry for over 15 years and quickly progressed to a senior management position. He was heavily involved with the design of some of the world’s most iconic cars throughout his accomplished career, such as the Mini and Range Rover.
In the early 2000’s, he took a huge risk and decided to leave the corporate world behind to explore his artistic side. However, his experience in the automotive industry was in fact to become the building block for his artistic future. His affinity for premium materials, craftsmanship and attention to detail in his artworks is a result of his product design background and differentiates him from most other artists.
Sidoli draws on this experience of industrial manufacturing techniques to fine tune each step of the process in his work, by customising every single detail, from the level of polishing applied to aluminium surfaces to the colour of a power plug on his neon works.
Sidoli grew up absorbing the music, album cover artwork and music videos of the 1970’s and 80’s which along with an enduring fascination with Andy Warhol, has had a powerful impact on his work. Warhol’s silkscreens, with high contrast monochrome images at the core of his artistic practice, remain one of his key influences. Like Warhol, he references popular culture to create artworks that are iconic and accessible. Yet they are also artistically credible, with fascinating stories and symbolism behind them.
More recently Sidoli was the first artist to combine pop art portraiture with neon art. This resulted in several high profile exhibitions and in 2016, Sidoli presented a series of neon portraits at Halcyon Gallery, as a visual tribute to one of his key influences: David Bowie. The solo exhibition celebrated Bowie at the height of his artistic glory - his "Golden Years" from 1970 - 1980. Sidoli's signature technique of print and neon on aluminium provided the perfect medium for this subject matter, both for the neon 1970's vibe and the way it captures Bowie's kaleidoscopic and glamorous persona.
