Y’all, I have known a lot of gifted artists in my day but Thomas Darnell has stopped me in my tracks. I have spent considerable time the last few weeks staring at his paintings, awe-struck by the gift that is within him.
Meet Thomas. (Yes, the orchid is a painting.)
The peonies have captivated me like nothing else.
When I say that the man paints large, I mean LARGE. Look at the scale of one bloom compared to him standing up.
I reached out to him to find out who this man is and to get his permission to bring his work to you: my clients and friends. He is gracious and frankly a little taken aback by the attention he is suddenly being given after years of quietly honing his craft, as a post about him went viral.
Here is how it all happened, taken from his biography:
“Thomas Andrew Darnell was born February 2, 1958 in San Antonio, Texas. One of nine children, he grew up in the nearby town of Grey Forest. His parents James and Mary had moved to Texas from the bayou country of southern Louisiana. Darnell graduated from John Marshall High School, Leon Valley, Texas in 1976. Afterwards, he majored in biology and fine art at the University of Texas (Austin) and graduated Magna Cum Laude.
He married Cheryl Parsons, a writer, in 1981 and the couple lived in Austin until her death in 1990 of cancer. This jarring loss was the catalyst for Thomas to re evaluate his own life and to pursue what he had always wanted to do: paint.
At 34, he left his job to “make his own little dent in the universe” as an artist. A potent combination of wanderlust and artistic yearning led him to set up a studio in Paris. He married Nicole Dufour, an Austin school teacher, and they lived across the street from Picasso’s old studio where “Guernica” was painted. Eventually they settled in the south of France and now have two children, Joseph and Ava.”
I can actually feel the prickly thick stem of that sunflower when I look at this image.
Flowers not your thing? OK, check out his landscapes. That is PAINT folks, not a photograph.
Here is a short video of the master at work in his studio and the breath taking vistas that he is inspired by in the south of France.
Now I am going to really make your day. Many of these gorgeous works are now, for the first time ever, being offered as prints/giclees so we can afford to own our very own! I have already been perusing so you need to hop on over to Thomas’s web site and see for yourself.
Thank you Thomas for allowing me the privilege of introducing your work. I really think that to be able to properly sell it though I should make a trip to France to see it for myself. Right?
