Car parts transformed into art in "Body Shop"

"Our cars are personal objects. ... To me the car is our connection to the American landscape," says Rosemarie Fiore, a faculty member of the McIntire Department of Art.

"Body Shop," an exhibition of a series of works Fiore created at the Skowhegen artist colony in Maine last summer, pushes the boundaries of traditional notions of art. Fiore used her 1995 Subaru Legacy and the fluids that are essential to make it run as the tools to create her art. The show itself forms a journey through the landscape of the car.

In creating "Subaru Legacy Rear Wiper Paintings," Fiore squirted motor oil, transmission fluid, coolant and power fluid out of the rear wiper and pressed them into paper to create a series of delicate fan-shaped images that are almost Oriental in character.

The motor of the Subaru becomes a topographical map in another work, a rubbing that records the terrain of the engine.

"Body Shop" runs through Oct. 29 in Fayerweather Gallery. The gallery, located on Rugby Road, is open Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.