zoer paints over 144 wrecked cars to create a large-scale color chart

french contemporary artist, zoer transforms the oldest french scrapyard into a large-scale color chart in his latest public project ‘solara’. comprised of 144 wrecked cars, the scrapyard has been organized and maintained by the owners for the past fifty years. by painting a new layer of color on each of the cars, the artist hopes to save the automobile wreckages from destruction, and instead provide them with a new identity. alongside the aesthetic makeover, the artist also created a crowdfunding page to help depollute the grounds of the scrapyard.

all images courtesy of zoerism studio

‘to maintain the memory of these wrecks, the artist has created a color chart where the RGB reference is combined with the collective imagination by renaming each shade by the name of the automobile model on which it was applied.’ states zoerism. ‘it will be the kadett blue 0f405c or the mercedes yellow e6c359. each color carries with it the history of the object, its use, and its personality.’

the project title is named after french car manufacturer talbot’s solara, which was produced until 1981. solara also refers to the solarization phenomenon; a natural process of color alteration after being exposed to the sun for a long time. zoer took note of the deterioration process on a car, and focused on painting over the hood, roof and the trunk.

solara highlights the difficulties that scrapyard owners face today. despite the landlord’s efforts to take care of the land, soil samples show high concentration of cadmium and nickel due to the abundance of separated car parts throughout the scrapyard. in effort to improve the soil pollution, zoer believes that implementation of hyperaccumulator plants will help absorb all the metal out of the soil. the crowdfunding site allows anyone to donate and receive exclusive graphic posters of the project from the artist.