On Thursday Aug. 2, Seattle artists Brennan Coyle and the Electric Coffin duo Patrick “Duffy” De Armas and Justin Kane Elder opened their “tribute to the cultures forged with steel and filled with gasoline” during Laguna Beach’s final Artwalk of the summer. With nods to Bardahl, Rat Fink, Hot Rod Magazine, the American Flag and Sailor Jerry, the exhibition features all hand-built artworks: solid, with layers and layers of intrigue…

“1960″ 26×36 inches, mixed media, Electric Coffin

“Smoke em” Acrylic and 1 Shot on hand cut skateboard, Brennan Coyle

For inspiration the artists looked around the classic garage, from magazine ads to pinups to a sportster — that’s a 1965 Harley Davidson Sportster, custom built and showcased by LandSpeeD out of Fountain Valley, Ca., in this here garage. Among Brennan’s nine hand cut, hand painted skate decks, “Smoke em,” with its blue pinstripe, skateboard and a surfboard among curls of smoke that help the canvas read as the skateboard it once was, says it all about the merging of cultures: “Even though they’re different things, it’s the same DIY attitude.”

The show also grabs onto the notion that workshop camaraderie is a thing of far reaching value and growing more rare in the computer age. Enter these extraordinary hand-crafted pieces, such as Kustom/Kulture, a two-part collaborative panellage (panel collage) that the three artists passed back and forth from their shops in Seattle until it was ready to show here in Laguna Beach…

The Garage is on view through Aug. 25, 2012.
View more images here.