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Denny Arant
Over the course of his extensive career, Denny Arant has exhibited throughout much of the country, from Key West, FL to Scottsdale, AZ to Washington, DC. His works are owned by the Chicago Art Institute, noted private collectors, and he has hung in the Baltimore Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Smithsonian Institution where he received the prestigious Franz Bader Award for Best in Show.
He creates in many mediums including wood, metal, and terra cotta sculpture, oils, acrylics, and watercolor. He experiments with new techniques and was the first artist to work with acrylic paint on plastic sheeting, and pushed the artisitic limits with an outer space series using oil paint dripped and manipulated through silk fabric.
His most recent works are the most exciting yet. Mr. Arant is exploring mixed media that include acrylics, polyurethane, pastels, metal, and beads. The paint colors are poured onto the canvas and the pieces are created without brushes. These new works continue to reflect his passion for color and texture.
"As an artist I have tried to follow one method of painting - from my heart, to my brain, through my hand, to the canvas. This is my idea of what art really is. I have heard art defined as something beautifully done. I would prefer to delete the word beautifully and preserve done, and let that stand alone in its fullest meaning. Things are not done beautifully. The beauty is in their being done."
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Artist Lies Among the Clouds
Family and friends say Denny Arant's colorful funeral suited him perfectly
By CHRISTINA E. SANCHEEZ
christina.sanchez@heraldtribune.com
VENICE -- Denny Arant didn't lay a brush on his final artistic inspiration.
But his spirit was all over it.
From their hearts, to their brains, through their hands, to his final
canvas, Arant's family and friends scribed their farewells.
About 25 well-wishers, following Arant's artistic philosophy, drew and wrote
on his sky-painted pine casket during a memorial service Thursday.
Arant, 79, died Saturday. His body was inside the closed casket, with a leaf
from the grave site of his favorite artist, Vincent Van Gogh.
Arant's paintings and sculptures are displayed in galleries locally and
throughout the country, including the Chicago Art Institute and the
Smithsonian Institution.
He moved to Nokomis in 2002 from Washington, D.C.
When Arant's partner of five years, Judy Sokal, dreamed up the idea of
painting his casket blue and covering it with clouds, she didn't think
Farley's Funeral Home would consent.
But funeral Director David Farley welcomed the unusual memorial.
Farley said it was the first time in his 44 years in the business he had
seen friends and family actually use a casket as a canvas, although a couple
of years ago a family wrote farewell messages on a casket.
Arant's funeral reflects a changing approach to the rites of death. In
recent years, Farley said, he's seen horse-drawn hearses, homemade caskets,
slide shows and photo tributes.
"There's a lot of personalization," Farley said.
The sky on Arant's casket reflected much of what his artwork conveyed,
making it a perfect landscape, said Sokal, also an artist.
"Denny believed that everything in life is connected. He painted still life
in the sky, the ocean in the sky, and picnics in the sky," she said.
The tribute not only honored the artist, but also proved cathartic for those
close to Arant. Sokal and Arant's daughter, Debbie A. Johnson, spent nearly
five hours painting the casket.
"We felt guided to do it," Johnson said. "You have to follow who you think
the person is. This is him."
Assunta Fox Gallery will feature a lifetime retrospective for the artist
during the month of September 2006. There will be a memorial reception
held in his honor on the first Saturday of the month in September from 7 PM
- 10 PM at our Design Center and Fine Art Gallery located at 209 N Main
Street in the Artist Village, Santa Ana, Ca
Call 949-275-5190 for further
details. |
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