In the year of Bentley’s 100-year anniversary the firm’s oldest and largest showroom, Jack Barclay Bentley in Mayfair, has teamed up with Icelandic-born artist Katrin Fridriks for the production of a one-off Continental GT.

Speed of Light Commander is the artwork that was chosen to perfectly merge, with its ebbs and flows, the beautiful lines of this exquisite car. This is the epitome of Bentley’s ceaseless quest for unrivalled design and an exhilarating, involving drive; it’s a tribute to Bentley’s proud racing heritage and a symbol of its exquisite craftsmanship. With the company’s prime focus being on speed, fine precision, and overall excellence, Fridrik’s renowned revolutionary practice of capturing energy through her work is the perfect pairing.

For her conceptualization of this car, Fridriks decided to follow up on her recent body of work from Grey Area solo exhibition with JD Malat Gallery earlier this year and combine it with her stylistic trademark: speed – and specifically, the queen of all speeds. The Speed of Light. As light is composed of photons possessing no antiparticle, this means that – in the world of light – dualism as we experience it does not exist. If one tries to imagine the point of view of a thing made of light, one must realize that, in that circumstance, there will be an experience of time zero: one exists in eternity and has transited into the eternal mode.

At the Speed of Light, one has gone beyond space and time and exists in completion of eternity.

Utilizing an exceptionally limited color palette between black and white, the artist’s intervention allows the bold lines of the car to come through her energetic liquid shapes. The abstract organic forms applied on the elegant surface of the powerful vehicle are following its impeccable design, accenting its raw performance and motion. Taking the “minimalistic” approach and creating an unsymmetrical composition, Fridriks’ painterly intervention is adding to the powerful nature of this exceptional hand-crafted machine. Starting with harmonious flowing marks in the front and accelerating towards splattering paint on the back, she is offering a different and unique appearance of the car depending on the variety of viewing points. Able to capture the movement of paint in nanoseconds, the precision of her creative process feels like an extension of Bentley’s capability to fine-tune every aspect of their celebrated product.

Katrin Fridriks’ uniquely painted One Off Continental GT will be revealed to the public from the 26th of September, while a signing of this exquisite unique model will take place on October 1st, from 6.30 pm to 9.