Today we’d like to introduce you to Dahlia Danton.
Hi Dahlia, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
I was born in the Midwest in a town so small we shared a zip code with the state capital, which was 40 miles away. Needless to say, art and artists were marginal to the lives of the two dozen families that lived there. I’ve always had a wild streak, so when I was in middle school, my friend Léonide and I hitchhiked to San Francisco. When our parents finally found us, it was way too late. We had officially been corrupted by the “big city.”
We were thirteen, but somehow, we decided to visit the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. I had never been to a museum before, but when I saw Rembrandt’s 1632 Portrait of Joris Caulerij, I experienced an ecstatic and grave sense of personal destiny. It was at that moment where I decided I was going to become a painter.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Well, seeing a Rembrandt and becoming a painter require vastly different levels of exertion. My first hurdle was convincing my parents that an artist was an honorable profession. They had other plans for me. My mom, Debbie Danton, is a terrific person, and she only wanted what was best for me. My dad, Richard Danton, is a little less terrific and, though moderately supportive, was pushing me to become a professional figure skater. (Did I mention that I trained for 14 years as a figure skater?) Dad was a bit of a tyrant, waking me every morning at 3:30 AM so I could be on the ice with my coach by 6. Yes, the poor guy would drive six days a week – an hour and a half each way – to the closest rink, where I would meet my coach and four other pale, sleep-deprived, reluctant athletes,
I know there’s a God because the day after my eighteenth birthday I broke my fibula in two places ending for good my father’s fantasy. I somehow managed to get a partial scholarship to study fashion design at Parson’s Paris and have never looked back since.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
Here is where I’m going to say the quiet part out loud: After years of art school and after earning a B.F.A. in Fashion Illustration and an M.F.A. in Painting and after participating in more than 150 group exhibitions and having 19 solo shows, I realize that the only – and I mean THE ONLY – thing that matters in an artist’s career is networking. My work isn’t bad, but it’s also not that spectacular. My ideas are derivative; my technical facility is awkward, my use of color is more decorative than evocative, and my sense of design in pretty conservative. The reason why I am so well known, the reason why my work sells, the reason why curators and collectors seek me out, and the reason why critics flatter me is because I’m pretty and friendly, and polite, and as cunning as a Hollywood publicist. I spend much more time on social media than I do in my studio, and I go to openings almost every week. These days, that strategy makes perfect sense. Though I thoroughly respect people who have noble values and who work diligently in order to expand their aesthetic vocabulary, that kind of stuff is not for me. I want my work to be widely known, and I want people to buy it.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
I don’t believe in risk. I believe in odds. When I make a decision, I always weigh the probabilities of success. I cold call people, I introduce myself at gallery openings, I flirt with collectors, I post regularly on TickTock and Instagram, and I keep a keen eye on what is trendy and what is not. To be an artist these days is to be tactical, not romantic.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.artmajeur.com/dahliadanton/fr
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dahliadanton/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dahlia.danton
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF4QbtWcvu4
- Other: https://dahliadanton.wordpress.com
