Dan Seymour’s been
everywhere, man.
The Anniston-based artist spent 20 years
in the Army as a Casualty and Mortuary
Affairs Specialist, helping tend to wartime
casualties and return them home for
burial. He joined a special unit that
scoured for soldiers gone missing in action
in foreign wars, sometimes searching for
missing service members gone two or
three decades. The job took him around
the world, from Thailand and Baghdad
to Hawaii and Virginia. He used art to
decompress and get outside his own head
during his free time.
“It was a release of not thinking of what
we were dealing with every day,” said
Seymour. “Take your brain off something
that stresses you and put it on something
that makes you feel better.”
reproduction tattoos, but Seymour’s are
spot-on; a Jimi Hendrix tattoo that took
him seven hours to apply is a perfect
representation of Hendrix.
For now, Seymour plans to work on a
bigger scale. A current project has him
applying a big Batman logo mural to a
wall for the family of a late friend, and he’s
interested in more large-scale work.
“I’d like to step it up a bit,” said Seymour.
Check out more of Dan’s work on
Instagram, where he can be messaged for
commissions or for more information. He
also founded Anniston Arts Community on
Facebook, where artists can promote their
work and events. ✻
It’s reasonable to expect gloomy art to
come from serious circumstances, but
Seymour’s watercolors run between dark
and light equally. One of his paintings
of Johnny Cash has the country singer
wreathed in fire, bright red and orange
bordering a grayscale version of Cash’s
face. Another painting features a woman
with tears running through mascara, but
it’s like the rest of her drips off the page,
too.
Seymour also tattoos, taking his work off
the page and applying it to friends and
clients. Everyone has seen bad photo
INSIGHT
August 2016 13