Louis Sidoli comes from an artistic Anglo Italian family and displayed an aptitude for art at an early age. However, rather than taking the traditional art school route, he carved out a successful career in the car industry for over 15 years as a designer and quickly progressed to a senior management position. He was heavily involved with the design of some of the world’s most iconic cars throughout his accomplished career, such as the Mini and Range Rover.
In the early 2000’s, he took a huge risk and decided to leave the corporate world behind to explore his artistic side. However, his experience in the automotive industry was in fact to become the building block for his artistic future. His affinity for premium materials, craftsmanship and attention to detail in his artworks is a result of his product design background and differentiates him from most other artists. Sidoli draws on this experience of industrial manufacturing techniques to fine tune each step of the process in his work, by customising and integrating every single detail of the artwork and its presentation from the level of polishing applied to aluminium surfaces to the electrical design of his neon works.
Sidoli grew up absorbing the music, album cover artwork and music videos of the 1970’s and 80’s which along with an enduring fascination with Andy Warhol, has had a powerful impact on his work. Warhol’s silkscreens, with high contrast monochrome images at the core of his artistic practice, remain one of his key influences. Like Warhol, he references popular culture to create artworks that are iconic and accessible. Yet they are also artistically credible, with fascinating stories and symbolism behind them.
He has achieved considerable acclaim since his late arrival on the art scene. He was signed to Castle Fine Art immediately after his very first collection of art in 2007, who distributed his work through a network of around 100 galleries worldwide, including Harrods, London. His ‘Most Wanted” series of mugshot artworks in 2008, based on police mugshots of the famous and infamous became a best selling published print edition. This introduced his work to a much wider audience worldwide and went viral, spawning numerous websites dedicated to the subject.
In 2015, Sidoli was commissioned by Halcyon Gallery of Bond Street London to produce a series of portraits to celebrate soccer legend Pele’s 75th birthday. His work, co-signed by Pele himself, featured in the exhibition “Art, Life, Football” alongside Andy Warhol’s original portrait of Pele from 1978. The exhibition which was three years in planning attracted over 50,000 visitors and gained significant international press coverage.
More recently Sidoli was the first artist to combine pop art portraiture with neon art. This resulted in several high profile exhibitions and in 2016, Sidoli presented a series of neon portraits at Halcyon Gallery, as a visual tribute to one of his key influences: David Bowie. This sell-out solo exhibition celebrated Bowie at the height of his artistic glory – his “Golden Years” from 1970 – 1980. Sidoli’s signature technique of print and neon on aluminium provided the perfect medium for this subject matter, both for the neon 1970’s vibe and the way it captures Bowie’s kaleidoscopic and glamorous persona.