This interview accompanies our feature profile on Stephen Selzler in the current print issue of Vicarious. Below, Selzler expands on his creative philosophy, influences, and views on the future of automotive art, in his own words.
Vicarious: Growing up, what sparked your lifelong fascination with automobiles, and how did that passion lead you toward fine art?
Stephen: I’m in love with the cars. Painting is how I show that love.
When I was a toddler, my parents put Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars in front of me. I had spent the first six months of my life without corrective vision, and once I got glasses, they noticed something immediately: I was drawn to shiny objects, and I was very particular about lining them up and organizing them by colour.
That memory stuck. Even today, when I look at cars, I still see those Matchbox cars. I see patterns, repetition, rhythm. I don’t know whether that obsession shaped my personality or whether it was already there, but I can trace it back to that moment.
I drew cars constantly in grade school. I collected model cars, built them, painted them. I wanted to surround myself with these little objects that reminded me of childhood. Even now, whether it’s a car, a watch, or another object with shine, that fascination hasn’t left.
V: Your work is often compared to artists like Andy Warhol. Which influences resonate most deeply with you?
S: If I had to choose one, it’s Andy Warhol.
I’m drawn to anything bold, loud, simple, and romantic. Warhol treated everyday objects as art, and that philosophy resonates deeply with me. Cars are everyday objects, but they can be captured in a way that simplifies them poetically.
I love bright colours, but I also love restraint. Warhol understood that complexity doesn’t need a complicated palette. A whittled-down use of colour makes things pop, it looks like candy to me. Another shiny object.
There’s also something about surface treatment — resin, fidelity of colour, gloss — that speaks to me. That idea of elevating an object through finish and presentation is central to my work.
V: You’ve said that your automotive pieces are portraits rather than renderings. What do you mean by that?
S: There’s a key distinction: I’m not rendering a machine. I’m painting a portrait.
When a piece is tied to a specific person; a collector, an owner, the car becomes a reflection of them. I did a series for a collector in Dallas featuring a Bentley and a Rolls-Royce. These were very large pieces, meant to live in his garage. His personality was big, confident, colourful, and accomplished.
So the work needed to be bold and textural, but not complicated. Each car was painted front-on, direct, unapologetic. It wasn’t about performance or engineering — it was about presence.
When it works, you capture the soul. That’s the goal.
V: Your work often feels dynamic, even when the car is standing still. How do you convey motion in a static image?
S: I focus on structure rather than motion itself.
A lot of my work uses architectural line work, draft lines, geometry, intersections. When you show structure honestly, motion appears naturally. It’s an old artistic concept called dynamism: implying movement without illustrating it directly.
Sometimes I’ll blur certain elements or add line intersections along a beltline. Even if the car isn’t moving, those visual cues suggest flow and progression. It’s subtle, but it works.
Interestingly, you wouldn’t do this with buildings. Buildings don’t move. But cars do, or at least they promise movement. That expectation is built into the form.
V: Many of your pieces feature human figures, especially children. Why is that storytelling element so important?
S: A human figure gives scale. It gives context. But more than that, it gives emotion.
There’s a moment I witnessed at Pebble Beach that’s stayed with me. A Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing was being prepped for judging. A young boy stood nearby, completely transfixed. The owner noticed and lifted the gullwing door. Light poured through the side window, and the child’s head was illuminated in this perfect square.
He was speechless.
It reminded me of being a kid in a Lamborghini dealership, staring up at scissor doors that felt impossibly tall. Those moments are ignition points. Cars give flight to people who celebrate movement, and kids understand that instinctively.
That child will grow up and look at that same car the exact same way. If I can capture that moment, that wonder frozen in time, that’s where art becomes poetry.
V: In an age of AI and automation, how do you see the future of automotive art evolving?
S: I think we’re going to return to the proof points of the past.
Collectors increasingly ask me whether my work is painted by hand. They want proof. They want to know it wasn’t generated. And that tells you everything.
I use digital tools for prototyping ideas, but ironically they’ve pushed me further toward texture; thick paint, raised surfaces, imperfections that computers can’t replicate. There’s magic in dried paint standing off the canvas.
I think the future is more tactile, more human. Mixed media, sculpture, immersive forms, but all rooted in craft. When everything is automated, the fact that a human did this becomes extraordinary again.
V: What advice would you give to young artists who want to build a career in automotive art?
S: Do what you want, but be consistent.
There’s something unique inside every person, and only you can be you. The things you see as flaws in your work are often the very things that become your signature.
Listen to feedback. Be receptive to criticism. Build a callous. Find the fairway rather than chasing the perfect hole-in-one every time. And remember: you still need to eat, breathe, and live. Sustainability matters.
If you balance personal expression with commercial reality, you give yourself the freedom to keep creating, and that’s the real success.