BACK TO BACK: From backyard to Boulevard

“Back to Back: From Backyard to Boulevard” shines a light on the lowrider community in Los Angeles. It’s an intimate portrait on uniting people from different communities over a shared passion and love for low riding.

Belgian born(°1990, Antwerp) photographer Stig De Block has spent the last 5 years (since 2018) of his life traveling back and forth to Los Angeles documenting an intimate portrait of the lowrider community. Instead of reaffirming sensational stereotypes, he uncovered a unique cultural phenomenon called ‘Sunday Funday’: parking lot gatherings and boulevards filled with local Chicano and Black communities, who celebrate unity in their shared reverence of tuned lowrider cars. With the curious eye of an outsider, Stig captures the raw beauty of candy colored paint jobs, faded autobiographical tattoos and chrome finish that together form the facade of a cultural, social and religious identity that has fascinated him since childhood.

The body of work is a form of authentic participation where Stig aspires to show you a glimpse of a too often misunderstood world that reaches far beyond U.S. territory. In his large sized, saturated prints he zooms in on cultural artifacts which invite the viewer to an in-depth stare in an attempt to unravel the complex and layered nature of the plates. Stig’s diptychs and chrome framing reflect the, at times, rough duality of Los Angeles’ everyday and search for unity between communities. He executes this idea by creating a textured contrast of powder dry prints put against reflective frames. The chrome frame, in its turn, unites the viewer with the print.

 The artwork “Drop Top, 140x180cm, Long Beach, CA 2022” is the definition of that. Stig’s photography practice is heavily inspired by the lines and composition pellicular to Fauvism and the razor-sharp aesthetics of Photo-Realism paintings from the 20th century. He views his work as one large graphic arrangement that mainly looks for textural contrasts. A good example of this idea is the cadrage on “James, 106x145cm, Palmdale CA 2018” where the emphasis shifts from a classic portrait to an arrangement of textures of skin surface, gold, and a red cotton cap. Stig’s work starts from an emotional spontaneity to try to sense in-between moments, situations, people approaching and then decides whether or not to capture them. 

“When I photograph I try multiple angles and directions. Because I work digitally, I have the leverage to edit afterwards. A flow of images is created in which I just choose the fraction of a second that represents that very moment. Everything else goes in the trash. The resulting images are always an exact representation of Stig’s intention.  He decides months later, or sometimes years in this case, on the final selection.” On his long walks, backyard afternoons and family bbq’s, Stig also initiated video recordings of the conversations he had, to deep dive and accentuate nuances he missed in his stills work. The full video Stig refers to as his “lowrider love song”, is a compilation of all footage made between October 2018 and May 2022.