Daniel Yocum

Daniel Yocum was born in Paducah, Kentucky in 1994. At the age of six, he picked up a shoulder-mount video recorder, and by sixteen had won several film festival awards, dropped out of school and began traveling the country as a cinematographer and editor making low budget, c-list feature films with a pack of middle-aged bohemians. Five years later, he slipped on a pink wig, moved down to Nashville, Tennessee and began a career as a music video director. After twenty years in the film industry and several mental breakdowns, Daniel decided to chill out and paint. 

At first blush, Daniel’s body of work could read as a scathing, tongue-in-cheek condemnation of American excess and cultural depravity, but upon closer inspection he’s neither condemning nor celebrating these lifestyle choices. He takes a hip hop approach to pop art by sampling wheat-pasted images of nitrous oxide canisters, logos, ramshackle celebrities, and prescription drugs accompanied by erratic bursts of vivid colors and lurking scribbles of black lettering. 

The ambiguous nature of his art and the polarizing meaning that can be drawn from it is intentional. His art is a mirror to the hedonistic lifestyle, casting no judgement: simply a confrontational, and at times, comedic reflection. His recent body of work ranges from Duchamp-esque sculptural installations and minimal paper pieces, to maximal and immersive, action painted canvas works.