The word “discovery” comes up again and again when Darren Young discusses his unexpected path as a painter. To begin with, he discovered he loved painting while studying commercial art, which then helped him uncover his subconscious, and from that point on, the discoveries have continued. In fact, you could say they’re an expected part of his process.

“There’s nothing like that feeling of discovering something new,” he says, sitting on a couch in his bright attic studio.

As a case in point, he explains the unlikely metamorphosis of his work Crossing Ginnungagap . When that unfinished large-scale painting accidentally fell, tipping over on its side, Young experienced a much-needed artistic breakthrough.

“I saw the door,” he recalls, “and I saw the painting a different way.” He resumed working on the 4-foot-by-5-foot painting on plywood. He sanded down color and built up texture, and then a floating person — “a disembodied soul” — appeared.

These appearances seem especially fitting given that Young was steeping himself in Norse mythology at the time and Ginnungagap is the mythical realm of creativity and power. 

The painting is suggestive, combining the real with the surreal; there are the solid facts of the door and roof that organically share the canvas with scratched hints of abstracted land and sky. 

Unexpected juxtapositions come easily to the Winston-Salem artist, who values perspective above all else. “I’m a pretty dual person,” he says. “I always try to see things from more than one point of view. I like to remain open to other possibilities.”

What helps expand Young’s perspective is books and drawing. He reads widely from history and myth, and is constantly “doodling,” which he likens to daydreaming — something is conjured, something takes over, images appear like faces found in a cloud-filled sky.

In Young’s painting California King Snake , the mythical and the figurative join together in a darkly powerful portrait. A striking, contemplative woman stands sideways, face toward the dripping red light, and yet pressing chaotically behind her are snakes, horns, and menacing shadows.

The surface of the painted plywood ripples, weaves, and moves. Bright, bold colors splatter and spill dynamically into shape. The woman’s eyes cast passively downward as her hands are gripped in gestures of defiance and survival. Young’s depiction of classical beauty becomes more personal and intriguing because of its scars and that strong sense of a battle kept at bay.
The painting is based on creation stories as well as Young’s wife, Rebecca, whom he met in California.

“She’s eclectic,” he says, “and some people thought she was a bad seed. When she moved here, she left a lot behind.”

Explaining his creativity, Young is matter of fact, even mellow. It’s something he does. He makes images, works with a messy palette, uses anything that comes his way — old crayons, found wood, any kind of paint. And, yet, there is the searching that’s the flipside of discovery. It’s the hard part. The obsessive part. Young’s unfinished painting of a woodland panoramic landscape is in about its 45th permutation. “It’s really haunting me,” he says in a way that sounds far more thrilling than worrisome.

“People always want to pin artists against a wall and explain their psychosis,” he laughs. “But art is a primordial thing. It’s almost shamanistic. It’s gut emotions. It’s the first thing we really had beyond fire.”

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When did you realize you’d live a creative life?
I was pretty much always drawing and making art. I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do, but in high school I knew this guy in my art classes who got into a commercial arts program, so I went up there with him to Guilford Tech.

Where do you find your inspiration?
From dreams, music, nature, mythology. I just read a lot. If I could do anything, I would just research stuff. I have so much fun discovering things. That’s what inspires me to make art.

What do you do to overcome a creative block?
I wash dishes, fold clothes, do homework, cook dinner, normal living things. You’ve got to get away from it. You’ve got a block because you’re looking at it too hard.

What do you think of failure?
It’s just a matter of perspective. A mistake can be the greatest thing you do. You don’t really learn from your successes, you learn from your mistakes. Every major event in my life has been a struggle, so anything worth having is worth struggling for.

Which artists do you most admire?
William S. Burroughs — he would take a shotgun full of paint and shoot it at a canvas. I really like his views on things and I like him as a person. Picasso. Ernest Fuchs. Neil Gaiman, a writer. I don’t just admire painters. I admire weirdos, as some people would say.

What would surprise people about you?
People are always afraid of me because I’m just so big. I’m 6-foot-4 with long hair. They think I’m going to be a crazy monster or a crazy person. I’ve had many folks tell me, “I thought you were scary, but you’re actually really nice.”