The Mechanic : Frank Rocca
Rocca Motors is a mechanic’s garage on High Street in Thornbury, in a building quite literally sandwiched between a Greek supermarket and a signless cocktail bar. It’s now owned and run by Joe, the son of this painting’s subject, Frank Rocca. Originally of Italian descent, I chose Frank as the sitter of this Archibald entry for a number of reasons, for instance the fact that he’d serviced pretty well all of my cars, more than ten cars over 40 years, from a mini to a Mercedes. Over these four decades, me and Frank developed not just a strong personal friendship, but also a transactional relationship that often involved more goodwill and barter than cash. Frank was unrelentingly blunt, endlessly called a spade a spade, and expletives flooded from his mouth like an opened fire hydrant. Doing Frank’s portrait gave me an artistic challenge, to try to capture the essence of such a hands-on, cut-the-crap character on canvas. I hope I did this unique human being justice.