Exhibit of motorcycle-inspired art opening tonight at Belknap Mill

It's hard to imagine something that is both more functional and more visually engaging than a well-designed motorcycle. Of course, this depends upon individual tastes, but artist John David O'Shaughnessy is betting that those who are in town during Bike Week, which starts on Saturday, will agree with the above statement.

The Belknap Mill is hosting an exhibit of O'Shaughnessy's motorcycle-inspired artwork timed to coincide with the annual. The exhibit opening will be held tonight, from 6 to 7 p.m.

The exhibit, titled "10,000 Machines," marks the first time that artwork will be displayed throughout the mill's first floor. O'Shaughnessy said he's excited about the opportunity to display in the mill, especially as his artwork, based on machinery, will be displayed among the machinery of the mill's prior uses as a water-powered textile mill.

O'Shaughnessy, a Laconia native who currently lives in Tilton, started to paint motorcycles in 2005, and he said he's been painting them "on and off" since then. "I have a lot of friends who ride motorcycles, so I thought it would be fun to hang out with them and do paintings."

His motorcycle works feature a variety of techniques, including oil on canvass paintings, water colored engravings, and reduction block prints. All of his works in the exhibit, he said, are a combination of representational and expressionistic art.

The subjects for his oil paintings were Harley-Davidson motorcycles because those were the ones his friends owned and he could use as subjects. For the water-colored engravings, he started with photographs of Ducati motorcycles.

After studying the two different motorcycle designs, O'Shaughnessy described the the Ducati design as post-modern. "Ducatis are highly functional. [Ducati] design is really about function over form."

In contrast, he described the Harley-Davidson aesthetic as modern and reflecting an industrial age. "It has function, but it comes from the machine-age aesthetic."

O'Shaughnessy's exhibit will remain on display at the Mill through July 7.