One of our favorite things at Podium Life is discovering all of the great artists creating motorsports inspired works of art. Tavis Coburn is one of them.
Tavis Coburn was born in Ontario, Canada. He is a graduate of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Coburn has received numerous awards, and accolades over his 20+year career, featuring a diverse list of clients, including Nike, Adidas, Apple, Arsenal Football Club, Time Magazine, Rolling Stone Magazine, and the New Yorker. Coburn has carved out a niche within his industry of illustrating automobiles and motorsports, including clients such as Virgin F1 racing, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Lexus, McLaren, and Audi. He has also worked for Chicane racing shoes, illustrating all their marketing, and team branding.
Coburn’s style references classic illustration of the 60’s, with a nod to vintage Sci-fi, and Popular Science/ Mechanics covers. His work evokes a sense of movement and speed, with dynamic compositions and bold eye melting color. A perfect fit for his car and motorsport clients.
Coburn’s process is a constant evolution, from his early days, hand painting the images with gouache, then screen printing the final illustration, to working entirely digitally. Always one to push new technology, his tool set currently is hi -end visual effects software and real time game rendering engines to produce his images. Even with all of that technology Coburn’s illustrations still feel like there is a sense that they have been hand done.
