Not many artists are inspired by ghosts, witches and monsters. New Orleans artist Thomas Deaton has been since childhood. His bright and colorful surreal geometric images of the New Orleans inner-city landscape draw viewers deep into his playful visual narratives about a city struggling to survive the decaying weight of time, neglect, humidity and changing climate. His palette captures that intense light and heat of south Louisiana.
“I’m not thinking of any specific neighborhood,” says 37-year-old Deaton, who was born and raised in Lafayette. “I tend to think of my work as not necessarily New Orleans but the Gulf Coast as a whole. A lot of places I travel to need a little tender care. It’s this constant war of attrition. I love that battle against nature and the idea of cycles of decay and renewal in the life of cities and neighborhoods. It’s like the existential threat. Nature is thriving and lush and it’s not always good for people trying to live with it.”
Deaton’s mostly acrylic paintings often include bodies of water such as swimming pools that act as devices upon which to paint reflections of nearby surroundings. He takes that a bit further in one ominous statement when he describes New Orleans as “perpetually submerged in a metaphorical flood.”
“I built this narrative that all of my paintings are speculative fiction,” he says. “So, I began projecting what’s the area going to look like 10 or 15 years from now if climate change continues unabated. They talk about losing land, the city sinking. So, I was wondering what would it look like if it was all flooded? Who are people who would still live here and hold out?”
And then there are those obscure spectral images hidden away in his complex compositions. Looking closely, viewers might see ghosts, witches, monsters and, even more chilling, reflections of smiling clowns. “I like imagery that’s kind of creepy and dark,” he says. “A lot of my paintings will have witches and ghosts and stuff tucked away in there.”
Deaton says these images come to him from movies, TV and books or while walking home in the dark of night among the shadows in his Lower Garden District neighborhood. He has great stories to tell.
“I don’t have a car,” he says, “so I rely on walking or taking public transportation to get around. I’m always on the lookout. The other night I was walking home about two in the morning when I heard this squeaky wheel sound. I was looking around wondering where that sound was coming from when I saw this man pushing a wheelbarrow on the street. That’s a little creepy scene that I could work into one of my paintings. It happens all the time. You see a dark figure in the distance that makes you a little unsure at two in the morning.”
Although Deaton takes on serious topics, he softens them with a bit of humor to draw viewers into his imagery.
“I put in a few jokes here and there,” he says. “I hope viewers find some humor in it and not think it’s too dour. I think of my paintings as twofold. One is the story about the little individual characters and then there is the overarching story about climate change and the life cycle of the city. I hope they come away with a new perspective about the area.”
With degrees in art from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and the University of Iowa in Iowa City, his background was in printmaking, especially by Japanese woodblock printmakers such as the renowned Japanese illustrator Hiroshi Nagai.
“They call it City Pop,” he says. “I am inspired by that work. It has a lot of these clean lines and buildings that kind of verge into geometrical abstraction. I also paint a fair amount of swimming pools and that got me looking at the work of [1960s British Pop artist] David Hockney. In general, printmaking informs my work. My work is more ‘printerly’ than painterly.”
Deaton’s work is gaining recognition. One painting was featured in the 2024-25 citywide international contemporary art exhibition Prospect 6 and another received a second-place award at the 2019 Contemporary Louisiana juried art competition at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. He is represented by LeMieux Galleries in New Orleans. Visit thomasdeaton.com.
