There wouldn’t be as much joy in the Joie de Vivre Café without the bigger-than-life paintings that give the place a special sense of identity…you can thank Darryl Demourelle for that.
Joie de Vivre Café
August 18, 2018
The first thing I think of when a guy tells me his nickname is 'Demo' is that his closet if full of blasting caps and his idea of a good time is blowing something up.
Partly correct...but certainly not dangerous.
When Darryl Demourelle talks enthusiastically about blowing things up, he’s talking about his paintings you can see clear across the Joie de Vivre Café, which is where I met him.
“There are two types of paintings I do here, ‘up close’ and ‘at a distance’,” says the artist.
He points out two paintings that have become the visual calling card of the café “They're ‘at a distance’ paintings, usually one big portrait or subject in the frame. You get the idea all the way across the room.”
He leads me over to the small bar area in an adjoining room. “For the ‘up close paintings’, you need to walk up to them to see the details and they are in smaller frames.” Right now he is busy working on three portrait commissions and a razzle-dazzle painting he wants to airbrush onto his truck. “The work is never boring!“
Demo is the Kilroy of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. His signature style is all over town - murals splashed across the sides of buildings, wild looking trucks and automobiles, T-shirts, boats, RVs, oh, and an airplane and a bridge.
His career started by accident. In the Air Force, he began to paint his boots and service T-shirts with big bold colors. Guys in his outfit admired them so he offered to sell them, “I sold my stuff so fast I never needed to change my clothes!“
Self taught, he’s been painting since he was a kid. After his stint in the Air Force, he was hired to make signs to advertise Tupperware parties they were popping up all over in the 1980s. He opened his own company. He hasn’t been lacking for business since.
Demo sort of likes the idea of being an outlier. His Facebook page proclaims him to be “the best unknown artist in Breaux Bridge”. Unknown maybe. But good, oh yes.
He started working in Lafayette but moved to Breaux Bridge which, like himself, has a personality all its own. The little outpost of about 8000 is sprinkled with a surprising share of entrepreneurs, musicians, and artists along with farmers, fishermen and Cajun and Creole families that have lived there for generations.
He will paint anything. “I’m about to airbrush my truck so it looks like it has tractor treads running along the sides.” That should make a splash around town. Anyone with a lick of sense will give him the right of way at every intersection along Rees Street.
“Everybody needs signs!” Demo did the lettering for the Jim Bowie Museum in the Vieux Village in his hometown of Opelousas, 24 miles north of Breaux Bridge.
“Younger artists come to me when they are having trouble with their work and I show them tricks that I know. I’m not going to lose any business. Sooner or later everybody comes to me.”
Spoken by a man comfortable in his own boots, even though he doesn’t paint them any more.
May as well say Coffee & Culture & Art Café
"At a distance" ...you can almost get a whiff of that huge cigar.
and one "up close" lower left
What do you do with former truck transmission cartons? Make outlandishly colorful guitars that would steal the show from a musician brave enough to compete with it.
Papier mâché fish from Demo's studio, not the Bayou Teche!
Walk out the door of the café...you won't see that bemused fellow but you will see those buildings right across the street!
Walk inside the café on a Saturday morning...you just might find Darryl Demourelle sitting under one of his fabulous paintings.
Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
It is certainly fitting to find him at the Joie de Vivre Cafe since his painting are so full of life and joy, some oddness, some distortion too but mostly fun. Your story about his artistic life gives wonderful coverage to the man and his art. Self-taught but showing a skill that many lack, it is no wonder that he never lacks a commission. His cleverness in turning the ordinary into the extraordinary and the discarded into treasures adds to the power of his art.
This post is, yet, another precious glimpse into the heart and soul of Louisiana.
Posted by: KB Jones | September 01, 2018 at 10:12 AM