Most people look at thrift store art and see trash. Dave Pollot sees opportunity.
By day, Pollot works as a software programmer. At night, he turns thrift store artwork into the kind of nostalgia-laced magic you see above.
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Pollot hasn't always been doing this; he used to paint more traditional subjects.
"Before I began repurposing discarded thrift art, I painted more 'serious' architectural paintings and landscapes. While I loved this, I found that I got bored very quickly (which resulted in about three completed paintings a year),"Pollot explained on his website.
But between his wife's love for thrift store shopping and his passion for pop culture, a new concept was born.
Pollot spoke with Business Insider via email. "I paint pop culture parodies of the things that I know and love," he said. "Gaming was a big part of my childhood, so you'll definitely see a lot of classic video game paintings, but movies, television, sci-fi, and tech also make up a large part of what I've done."
After choosing a painting from his collection of thrift art, he spends anywhere from 8 to 36 hours transforming the work.
"It very much depends on the size and complexity of the piece, but generally somewhere between 8 and 36 hours," he said.
Pollot doesn't do this full-time; his day job is programming. "Perhaps someday I'll be painting full-time, but for now it's really nice that there's no pressure on the artwork," he told us.
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