This post was provided by our friends at Daddy Van Productions, a live concert video production company.

Charlie Terrell is an unconventional artist. Coming up in Los Angeles as a musician, playwright, and painter, he’s developed a very unique style that combines several cultural elements, digital alchemy, disparate artistic movements, and a whimsy for guerilla patronage. He’s also expanded his medium into film and video with Daddy Van Productions, which works with high-profile artist such as Maroon 5, Rascal Flatts, and Disturbed.

His promiscuity and irreverence for conventional success in the arts world has allowed Terrell to sink his teeth into a niche market of online artists. His digital paintings are gaining buzz across the digital art community for their pungent visual styles, color swaths, and the manner of their creation. In fact, his online notoriety is somewhat of a puzzle to even himself.

“I just started doing the digital stuff the last two years,” Terrell said. “I put them up on Tumblr, DeviantArt, and Behance. The only reason I do it is to hear them say ‘God that looks cool. You’re awesome’.”

Humbly, Terrell can reduce his digital painting down to nothing more than homages of some of his favorite influential artists (he’s particularly impressed by Gustav Klimpt and the aesthetics of French art noveau) and other stylistic influences that he’s absorbed, however the actual paintings themselves tell another story.

Terrell’s figures are all gleaned online and then manipulated in Photoshop using drawing tools, elaborate overlays, vibrant color contrasts, hard lines, and distinct elements of voodoo, art noveau, and similar tropes found in iconic Dia del los Muertos imagery, including his trademark white diamond on the nose of several of his subjects. His paintings draw a fine line between digital painting and exquisite photo manipulation, which has incited controversy from some of those he’s painted. Painting or manipulation they are evocative of an accumulation of styles and an adventurous mind willing to try just about anything.

“I’m kind of hooked on the voodoo nose right now, but there’s a lot people doing voodoo art. I’m trying to get away from that and do more art noveau, and African things.”

A sign of more divergent styles to come.

This same openness that allowed Terrell to find his own style in the digital art world has also made him a highly sought after video producer for massively popular musicians and bands. Through his background in music and his experience in writing, directing and producing the acclaimed musical, “Taking the Jesus Pill”, Terrell has made a career out of working with artists to produce the video spectacle for their live shows.

“My video work is not my true voice, it is the residue of my ambition,” Terrell says. The same slogan adorns the heading of one of his many online art websites.

Building upon his digital palate, Terrell’s innate ability to recognize and, in some cases, imitate styles make him the perfect candidate for this line of work. More often than not, bands already possess a certain visual appeal. Some have iconic imagery. This puts video producers in the difficult position of creating something new to accompany the music while also staying true to the band’s recognized image.

Infamous Chicago metal band, Disturbed, was a unique case. With the release of their fourth LP, Asylum, the band reached out to Polly Parsons and Terrell, who co-operate Daddy Van Productions for help creating their tour video.

“It’s hard for us as artists and as a band to give that creativity to someone else and trust their vision,” said Disturbed lead guitarist Dan Donegan, “and [Charlie] had nice sense of direction, some cool, dark images, and was pretty much on the same page as where we are with the imagery. A lot of stuff just really blew us away.”

But Disturbed, being a band with such iconic imagery tied to their name (specifically “The Guy”, their sinister mascot), meant Terrell also had to make sure that more esteemed elements of the bands visual history were included in the production.

“I like what he did with Stupefy, which was our first single from The Sickness,” Donegan said. “[Terrell] took images from our old video and just warped them and kind of turned them around, incorporated some of his new textures, and I thought that was a creative way to tie in that old look from 11 years ago. With our trademark art work, “The Guy”, to kind of bring those things in there was important to us because those images have become a big part of the band.”

In addition to their concert video, Terrell also wrote and directed the shoot of the band’s first video from the new album, “The Animal”. You can find the video HERE. “The Animal” video displays Terrell’s varied and somewhat macabre stylistic flourishes, from the elaborate dinner table set, to the tribal girl character which resembles Terrell’s digital painting. His influence is prominent. “Film is where it’s at,” Terrell said. “That’s what I really want to do, is more videos.”

But his passion for creating his digital paintings remains. Never quite satisfied with his work, and even unwilling to give a specific time frame for how long it takes to complete one of his paintings (“I always find that question difficult to answer,” he said), Terrell seems be content in finding new fascinations in online art and exploring new ways to challenge his creative ambition by creating live concert videos with Daddy Van Productions.

“When I’m working with a client I like the challenge of trying to please them even though it’s not necessarily my own work. That’s the real challenge.”