Collection: Drew Darcy Artist Biography and Art Gallery Collection

Drew Darcy is a British artist who was born in Shrewsbury, in 1976, the eldest of twins. He creates remarkable, expressive artwork with romantic, feminine imagery and a careful attention to detail. Darcy always drew growing up, but was introduced to oil painting at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire. He next moved to Birmingham and completed his arts education at Bourneville Art College. The creative process used by Drew Darcy fuses old and new techniques; inspired by music, fashion, design, and advertising, he manipulates images on his computer that he will then translate onto the canvas with paint and brush. The distinctive figurative works of Drew Darcy utilize space and capture a distinct moment, communicating realism and movement with expertly depicted female forms as he also plays with texture, color, light, and shade.

Drew Darcy cites his love for music, fashion, modern design, film, photography, advertising, and his ever-changing moods as just some of the many subjects that can spark off his creative process. In terms of existing artists that he admires include the celebrated likes of Gerhard Richter, Francis Bacon, and Edward Hopper to name but a few. Initially Darcy chose to showcase his new composition of works at carefully selected galleries across England before decamping on Birmingham’s contemporary art industry famous Autumn Fair in 2004. Displaying five brand new pieces of art, Darcy looked at this venue and stage as serving as his first real opportunity to get a first-hand reaction from art collectors, galleries and many of the larger publishing houses. He was overwhelmed with such a great response to his work at the time and this was the venue where he met Glyn Washington and his team, Darcy was convinced that they would represent him best as an artist and obviously afford him exposure to a wider audience than he’d ever been privy to previously.

Drew Darcy chooses to approach his work by spending many hours are gathering photographs and other sources of reference. Darcy explains it best with the following insight into his work; “My work is mainly figurative and I like to capture moments in time, whilst still trying to keep a sense of movement and realism. Once I have enough to work with I can manipulate images using my computer and can quickly realize my initial ideas on screen”. Indeed, Darcy is certainly an artist who embraces modern technology, yet still maintains a conduit with more traditional methods when it comes to his artistic process. As the artist Darcy puts it: “I can then get a feel of what the final piece will look like, change colors, cut and paste. I embrace technology and love the fact that I can marry traditional methods with the modern and new. However, nothing compares with the magic that can be created with a brush stroke. No digital imagery or computer power can get even close to that invaluable human touch. I eagerly anticipate transposing the developed ideas onto canvas”.