Inspired by the grotesque and the extreme, Derrick Nau of Pomeroy leads a filled life as the drummer for thrash metal band Skeletonwitch and a graphic designer with a keenly dark aesthetic.
"I was always one of those types doodling in their notebook. My parents thought it was weird when I would draw skulls on things in elementary school," Nau said.
When he attended Athens High School, Nau's interests became darker and more refined in terms of art and music as he listened to the black metal of Immortal or Emperor over more commercial metal such as Metallica. Once he enrolled at the Cleveland Institute of Art, he began to feed his interest for monstrous images and cadavers with a focus on Biomedical Art and Design.
"I probably wasn't that good at art before I went to school," Nau said. "But I had some good college classes such as 'Anatomy for the Artist,' where in the morning once a week we would go in the basement of the university hospital and we could respectfully poke around the cadavers. ... That really helped me understand the human body."
Once in school, Nau was able to hone his skills and begin doing freelance work for various metal bands, designing posters and T-shirts. One of his early projects was an album cover for the Washington D.C. band Nihilitia, whose lead singer, Sarah Hussain, knew Nau when she lived in Athens.
"When we first met, I hadn't seen more than a couple of the shirts he had done for the Witch," Hussain said. "The level of detail in the various types of illustrations he has done since then show a lot of artistic growth. When I look at his illustrations, they are so vivid and evocative that they instantly conjure up some kind of narrative. Art should take you on a journey and his designs definitely do that."
Nau's big break came when Skeletonwitch had a designer fall through for an advertisement they needed for the prominent metal magazine, Decibel. In three days, Nau created an elaborate skull design that drew new attention to his artwork and bands began contacting him to do work for them through his Web site, www.apocalypsenau.com.
Nau's prominent upcoming projects, between tour dates with Skeletonwitch, include a T-shirt design for the black metal band Dimmu Borgir and poster designs for this year's For Real Fest and Maryland's annual Deathfest.
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