Art In Action: Surprising Hidden Artists – Johnny Depp
By Darla McCammon and Darlene Romano
“Me? I’m dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It’s the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they’re going to do something incredibly…stupid.”
Those words, spoken by Captain Jack Sparrow as portrayed by Johnny Depp in “Pirates of the Caribbean,” were to catapult Depp to fame in one of the highest money-making series of movies in history. As hard as it may be to believe this scalawag captain, our artist this week is honest in his love of art.
Johnny Depp is a talented musician, producer, award-winning actor, and artist, and is the topic of our discussion this week. Depp was born in Owensboro, Ky., on June 9, 1963, and suffered with his siblings at the hand of an abusive mother. Music and drawing were his salvation during these dark times, so he dropped out of high school at age 16 and started a successful band called “The Kids.” At the age of 20, he moved to Los Angeles with his band to pursue a recording contract and met and married Lori Allison, a girl who was friends with Nicholas Cage.
Cage encouraged Depp to pursue acting and arranged an audition for Depp, who landed the role. From that point forward, he stepped into many successful roles and has been the recipient of many film and television nominations and awards.
Acting was Depp’s way to earn a living and although he enjoyed acting immensely, creating art and music became his therapy over time. Depp has worked throughout his life to teach himself the mechanics of painting, focusing on using the acrylic medium. His art collection called “Friends and Heroes” recently sold out in less than one day at the Castle Fine Art Gallery, with sales totaling almost $4 million.
The gallery said this about Depp’s work: “He worked form photographic references, stripping each image back to a simpler and iconic portrayal of the subject, which he then developed and energized with his characteristic freehand flourishes.”
This technique is distinctive in that Depp does not create a unique portrait, but uses photographic references and then adds to the paintings in a way that results in an exclusive piece of art. Many artists work from photographic references, so that in and of itself is not unusual, but working from references with portraiture is not as common. Depp has created his own style with this process, and it has been quite successful.
He is also expanding his art by selling NFTs, a popular selling tool using a type of cryptocurrency employed by many artists. A generative art collection of 3,850 “Never Fear Truth” NFTs recently sold on OpenSea and is minted on Ethereum, featuring artwork by Depp.
He reflected on his artwork on the Castle Fine Art website, saying: “I have always used art to express my feelings and to reflect on those who mean the most to me, such as my family, friends and people I look up to…My paintings encircle my life, but I have kept them to myself and limited myself. No one should ever limit themselves.”
It’s interesting that so many of the hidden artists highlighted in this column were afraid to show their work. This trait makes them seem more relatable to the public because so many non-celebrity artists feel this way as well. It’s refreshing to find a common thread with someone so famous, and surprising to realize that Depp has the same insecurities as the rest of us.