Peter Anton

Peter Anton (b. 1963) is a contemporary sculptor who is best known for his larger than life candies and desserts. Declaring, “I like to create art that can lure, charm, tease, disarm and surprise,” Peter Anton produces oversized, lushly detailed, delicious-looking, and subtly unsettling sculptures of food, especially sweets.

 

“I have an innate reverence for the things we eat,” he says. “Food brings people together and there is no better way to celebrate life. . . The sensual nature of the works stimulates basic human needs and desires that generate cravings and passion.” Like Claes Oldenberg, Anton plays with scale, blowing up donuts, lollipops, boxes of chocolate, and banana splits into absurdly large, somewhat menacing proportions.

 

Viewers are more likely to be consumed by his colorful confections than able to consume them. Concerned with craft as much as concept, Anton carefully renders each detail of his sculptures, down to every last sugar crystal.

 

At times Anton's studio can resemble a sweet shop since it is filled with dozens of real treats which he uses as models. His beginning process is to eat, smell, feel, study and dissect a new food over and over again in order to hyper-familiarize himself with the new subject. He then begins the long and tedious process of sculpting, carving, sanding, painting, and construction of his mixed media works.