At heart, Atlanta artist DL Warfield is still a kid with a sketchbook
DL Warfield with his Bring the Noise Cypher. Inspired by Chuck D of Public Enemy, the speakers play music.
Photograph courtesy of DL Warfield
It was 2016 when DL Warfield presented his one-man show My Boyfriend Is Black. The collection featured a series of paintings of iconoclasts Jimi Hendrix and Jackie Kennedy together, her hand comfortably resting on his arm, posing for a portrait. The show also included a diptych portraying Serena Williams with the husband from the classic American Gothic painting, with a complementary piece showing the American Gothic wife alongside Bruce Lee. The works are a definitive statement on the normalcy of interracial relationships in America, a topic Warfield knows well.
When discussing the origins of the series, Warfield shares his personal journey with his wife and business partner, Lisa, who is White. The interracial couple met in high school in St. Louis. “Growing up there, it was extremely segregated,” he says. “We had to be committed to be together. My thought was always, you don’t really choose the person that you love, you just love the person.”
Warfield’s powerful satirical expressions on this subject evolved over time, featuring other pairings such as Tupac Shakur alongside Audrey Hepburn, and Rihanna with John F. Kennedy. But after eight years, the artist has decided to call the collection complete. He didn’t want his work to become cliche or commercial.
“At the time I created them, they definitely made an artistic and a cultural imprint,” he says. “But if you keep playing it, it might not mean as much, because people become tone-deaf or desensitized. It almost becomes a verb, an action word, like ‘Oh, just do it like Warhol.’ I didn’t want that work to be that.”
When he is not focusing on projects for his creative services agency, Goldfinger C.S., from his home office in Alpharetta, he’s working on his collections at his nearby art studio. While working on the Jimi/Jackie series, Warfield simultaneously started two new projects. In 2012, he began workshopping AmericanFlagRemix, a mixed-media interpretation of the American flag, and DOPE, a reimagining of Robert Indiana’s pop sculpture LOVE as a nod to one of his true passions—hip-hop. His latest endeavor is Cyphers, a mixed-media homage to the B-boy culture he grew up in. The circular works include the four elements of hip-hop fashioned in the tradition of Arabic mehndi and Moorish damascene patterns.
Warfield’s works can be found across the country in private and public collections. Dave Chappelle, Usher, T.I., Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski, and former Atlanta Falcon Matt Ryan are just a few of his many celebrity fans and collectors. Several businesses have also acquired his art, including Mercedes-Benz Stadium, The Trap Museum, and Antico Pizza. Recently, Vans Sportswear Company picked up an AmericanFlagRemix piece for its headquarters in Costa Mesa, California. In Atlanta, his works can be viewed or purchased at Art & Company (Buckhead, Serenbe) and Maune Contemporary Art Gallery. Warfield also provides limited-edition art, including DOPE apparel, home goods, and other merchandise on his company’s retail website, goldfingershop.com.
The through line of all of Warfield’s work is a discerning stance on American ideology from an unapologetic Black lens.
“When I go places, I always bring something back mentally that will find itself in some pieces that I do,” he says. “But then it’s always interpreted through a young Black kid that grew up in St. Louis that just had a sketchbook full of dreams.”
This article appears in our September 2024 issue.
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Artist DL Warfield’s latest endeavor is Cyphers, a mixed-media homage to the B-boy culture he grew up in. The circular works include the four elements of hip-hop fashioned in the tradition of Arabic mehndi and Moorish damascene patterns.
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