Charlie James Gallery is pleased to present Lookout Weekend, an exhibition of new paintings by The Perez Bros, their second with the gallery. Working collectively as The Perez Bros, twin brothers Alejandro and Vicente Perez capture the passion, precision, and flair that defines the lowrider car culture of their native Los Angeles. With this new body of work, the brothers invite the viewer into the garage in the lead-up to a car show or cruise night, capturing the tuneups, polishes, and other careful preparations that make a car show-ready. The exhibition culminates in one of their largest works to date, a panoramic view that captures the community beyond the cars, solidifying both the car show and the exhibition as a gathering place for one of LA’s most iconic subcultures.

The exhibition takes its name from a 1984 dance track by Debbie Deb, part of the soundtrack of the brothers’ childhood growing up around their father’s car club. The song’s defiant joy sets the tone for the exhibition as one of hopeful anticipation, of working hard for the luxury of leisure, of toiling separately in preparation for the great pleasure of coming together. At the center of it all is the cars, the Perez Bros’ obsessive subject. The brothers are constantly taking photographs at garages, in neighborhoods, and at car shows and cruise nights. The paintings pull from this vast photographic archive, from which they distill scenes into their purest details in brightly-hued canvases that are finished with high-gloss resin infused with reflective flake. Often finished with three-dimensional details, the paintings mimic the glossy perfection of the lowriders themselves, collapsing subject and surface in an endless chrome loop.

The opening of the exhibition builds anticipation by featuring scenes from the lead-up to the weekend, showing the care and preparation that goes into keeping and showing cherished cars. Lookout Weekend depicts two men polishing cars parked in the driveway of a typical southern California home, a level of background detail that is new in the Perez Bros’ practice. The figures’ focus and careful attention to the cars’ surface mirrors the artists’ approach to the canvas, just as the sparkle of the glossy flake finish on the paintings calls to mind the reflective shine of auto paint. Both cars in Lookout Weekend sport their club name, “Our Style,” which counts the Perez patriarch among its members. Other works feature scenes from the auto body shop, including Charlie’s Transmissions, the brothers’ first shaped canvas. This work takes its dimensions and chrome decal from the spare tires often found on the backs of lowrider cars, furthering the conflation of canvas and car in the Perez Bros’ oeuvre.

Elsewhere, the artists depict cars almost as celebrities, aloof and untouchable. High Class Towing features a 1964 Chevrolet Impala perched on the back of a tow truck. The car itself is chauffeured to events, too beautiful to drive on LA’s notoriously pitted roads. Purple Swag finds a car posing for the camera like a star on a red carpet, complete with paparazzi clamoring for the perfect shot. The crisp lines and precision detail achieved by the brothers mirror their own interest in the minutiae of each make and model, their deep knowledge of and obvious love for the cars and the culture surrounding them comes through in the care with which they are rendered.

The culture that surrounds these cars comes to the fore in A Sunday Afternoon at Victoria Park, one of the Perez Bros’ largest paintings to date. Where their previous work rarely featured background details or settings, this exhibition introduces a wider range of subject material. A Sunday Afternoon at Victoria Park provides a panoramic view of a car show, including more than a dozen parked cars alongside clustered crowds, shade tents, and even a portable outhouse. This widening of the lens of the painting allows the brothers to consider not just the cars, but the culture and community that surrounds them. This quality also infuses Grand National, a quieter painting in which people gather around a pristine Buick Grand National for a casual backyard barbeque. The car remains the star of the composition, but it also serves as the center of gravity for the orbit of an entire community system.

The Perez Bros eat, breathe, photograph and paint lowrider car culture. Growing up in South Gate, California Alejandro and Vicente (Born 1994) were born into a family of motor-heads, so it was only a matter of time before the identical twins took to documenting the Los Angeles Lowrider scene. Both attended Otis College of Art and Design to pursue degrees in Fine Art focusing on painting, which is when they started collaborating as an artistic duo. Their photographs, murals and paintings capture slices of Los Angeles as only locals can.