Every now and then when someone, or something, gives to you, you feel the need to give back. This was the case for Denver-based artist Dan “DUNN” Ericson a.k.a. the Signtologist. Ericson was raised and influenced heavily by music growing up, especially hip-hop. Ericson bases all his art on recreating famous musicians as well as other famous icons. The difference between the Signtologist and the regular artist is that he uses old street signs as his canvas.


To answer your first question, no he does no go around stealing signs from his local streets. He gets all his signs donated legally from the city of Denver, so don’t start ripping down all the stop signs in your town. The mostly monochromatic portraits tend to be of figures important to the world of hip-hop – one that’s deeply important for The Signtologist. In fact, as the artist told one journalist, it was a hip-hop artist (Black Thought, the rapper from The Roots) who gave him his monicker. One day in 2005 Black Thought named Dan the Signtologist. The artist formerly known as Dunn the Street Sign Artist hasn’t looked back since, and thank god because that might have been the most obvious boring nickname ever.

Besides hip-hop contributing to his ever evolving art collection, he also credits his mother for influencing his work. Mary Lou Ericson is also an artist, and a damn good one too. Both Mary Lou and Dan use faces as the subjects of their paintings. Dan focuses on famous musicians and other celebrities, while Mary Lou uses a wide range of rich colors to create amazing portraits of every day people from around the world. Their work will be on exhibit until January 19th at the Lobby American Grill, in Denver Colorado. If you want to see more of the Signtologist, check out his facebook page for upcoming events, or just to show him love.