If you consider it, we don’t like much. If art is whatever you want it to be, what we stick on the walls is a narrow collection of largely uninteresting, comfortable and restrained image types: anything with a horse, a woman (dressed; naked) or a man (miserable; even more miserable (I’m including Jesus)); a limited range of colors (things that go with beige, magnolia, cream and 100 shades of white interiors for a quick rental); natural scenery; elephants. David Irvine buys these hackneyed paintings in thrift stores and injects them with humor, interest and the unexpected. “Re-Directed Painting is a genre of art where I buy from yard sales, thrift shops or salvage from the curb predictable mass-produced art and add my own slant to them,” says David. “The only rule is that I never paint over the original artist’s signature.”
“My redirected thrift art series began around 2012. I have used thrift shops, yard sales etc. to buy art to save money on materials or for the frame. I hate seeing waste and there’s always lots of discarded art that is available. I do research on each piece (if its an original) to insure it has little monetary value or importance. I take a lot of time to touch up damaged areas and have one rule that any addition I paint in does not cover the signature of the original artist.
“The very first piece I worked on was a beach scene and I added in two reapers playing with a beachball. It was met with immediate results and I decided to do more and came up with the term “ReDirected Art” – as a special tag that people could use to locate me. To my surprise it’s now a general term used by many! In 2014 I went viral for the first time after a feature on TwistedSifter. Many other social media sites featured my work, and I was fortunate to have press from around the world and endorsed by numerous celebrities including George Takei. I’m now working on numerous commissions and projects for clients around the world. Looking forward to having a large art exhibit within the next 3 years when time permits. It’s been a wild ride so far and I continue to get great satisfaction from taking a piece that was destined for landfill and giving it a renewed life to be enjoyed in someone’s home.”
See more of David’s work at Gnarled Branch. Also a t: Etsy, Society 6 and Red Bubble.
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