Darrel was born in Carmarthen, Wales. He studied at Bath Academy of Arts, then began working commercially whilst also studying at the Royal College of Arts and the Hochschule der Kunst in Berlin. In 1994 Darrel founded Heart, representing twelve of his peers and friends. Darrel divides his time between the two hats of ‘agent’ and ‘artist’… his desk reflects a fine balance of the two.

In Darrel’s collaged juxtapositions act like neural connections for a subject matter. As a collagist he is often asked to illustrate ideas that are multifaceted or broad and abstract in their scope. An example of this is a commission to illustrate Professor Brian Cox’s book ‘A Human Universe’ for Harper Collins. Darrel also regularly works for The Lancet medical journal, The New Scientist and Harper’s Magazine. He has worked on advertorials for Brother Industries and campaigns for the Royal Society of Arts as well as music videos for Universal Music and album artwork for Warner Music Group.

The artworks that Darrel creates stem from a desire to interact with complex ideas. Although a fan of Dada, Darrel’s images that aim to illuminate a subject are ironically at odds with the Dada movement. He does however still create physical collages, often within a strict time limit as short exercises in deference to the possible serendipitous nature of collage. He also maintains a regular correspondence with the Artist John Furnival via Mail Art. These and his ‘readymade’ sculptures using mannequins, anatomical models and tribal masks all reinforce a particular aesthetic utilising his collected samples of typography and imagery, cut-up and re-appropriated from packaging and advertising materials.

Maxims are a particular interest of Darrel’s and heads are a recurring theme in his work, making the connection with collages being a cerebral language, a collection of thoughts on a subject that create an opinion. A structured visual accumulation of his subject

Select Client List
Architecture Review, Atlanta, Brother Industries, Courrier Japan, The Economist, The Financial Times, GQ, The Guardian, Harper Collins, Harper Collins, Harper’s Magazine, Harvard Business Review, The Lancet, Loyala Marymount University magazine, The New Law Journal, Newsweek, The New Scientist, The Observer, Penguin Books, Prospect, Random House, Royal Society of Arts, The Spectator Stanford Social Innovation Review, Universal Music, Warner Music Group, The Washington Post, World Architecture Magazine