daryl thetford

Tennessee’s Daryl Thetford often uses more than 200 photographs to create one piece of his digital pop art.

Artist: Thetford grew up on a farm in Bradford, a small town in the rural northwest corner of Tennessee. His father worked in a warehouse, and his mother was a beautician.

While Thetford’s parents encouraged him to pursue “practical” avenues of work, they also recognized his early interest in art, and enrolled him at age nine in oil painting lessons — which he loved.

He later earned a degree in history from Union University in Jackson, TN, and a master’s degree in counseling from Murray State University in Murray, KY.

For the next 15 years, Thetford worked as a vocational program director, mental health center manager and therapist, before he made a career change at age 39.

Company/studio: Daryl Thetford, but he also uses Thetford and Shavin Art Enterprises since his wife, Dana Shavin, is also an artist and writer. Thetford has created a studio in a converted three-car garage space at their home in Chattanooga.

In the beginning: Started taking photographs of old diners, abandoned places, train cars with graffiti and a series of interiors of Mississippi juke joints — and showing them at outdoor festivals for several years.

Wanting to do more with his art, Thetford started combining images, like a guitar sign with graffiti from a train car, and creating more involved collages.

Eventually, he started digitally creating his own graffiti from old signs, handwriting and other words and images that he had photographed.

Art & materials: Digital mixed media collages, using various materials, including ink, paint and torn or weathered paper.

Themes in his colorful, textured works, include: Cityscapes, cowboys and women’s faces in contemporary culture. Works range from $750 to more than $20,000 for special commissions, though his average sale is about $4,500.

Thetford’s work can be found in many commercial and residential spaces across the country.

Process:

Takes his own photographs of people, buildings, street signs, horses, words, and weathered painted walls.
Selects single images from his digital files, and develops them.
Starts digitally layering images.
Finishes piece with paint, paper, collage and other artist media.

It takes about 40 hours to produce a single work.

Favorite tool(s): Photoshop, a cement trowel and paint brushes.

Inspiration(s):

Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Jean-Michel Basquiat for their freedom and seemingly loose style.
Frida Kahlo for showing artists how to translate the personal into the universal.
Shepard Fairey’s graphic style.
Cecily Brown, who painted large murals inside the Metropolitan Opera House, in NYC.
Kerry James Marshall and his life-size paintings on sail canvas.
Hung Liu, who blended painting and photography and combined the personal and historical. Also her use of color.

Fun commission: An eight-foot-by-15-foot work with a Western theme for a client’s dining room in Sun Valley, ID.

Recent project: A series about his late father. It is titled: Forgive Us Wherein We Fail Thee: Death of the Old White Man. An image is pictured below.

What’s next: La Quinta (CA) Art Celebration, March 2-5.

Where to buy: [email protected].