I didn’t find sugar. 
I think sugar found me.

Some people intentionally study an art form, others stumble upon it either naturally or by fate.  As a wee young lad, I loved to draw, I loved to paint.  I loved to sculpt funny figures out of Play-doh.  I also loved making puppets out of my socks, both used and new (to my mother’s dismay), and bring them to life by stuffing them with the cotton balls she used for her cosmetics.  I think she may have preferred I stick to pens and paper. 

Drawing and sock puppets aside, my strongest inclinations proved to be in the kitchen. I migrated toward all things confectionery and culinary, a gift passed down to me by the matriarchs of my family.  Years later, I learned from my mother that the first birthday cake I made for her, when I was seven, was as hard as a rock, but she ate it anyway because I was so proud of my creation.  Whisk in hand, my journey down the proverbial sugar rabbit hole began…    

There’s something very beauteous and wonderful about sugar.  The folds in a fondant ripple or frill, the porcelain plaster of pastillage, the amber waves in a buttery caramel.  It beckons you to taste it, to play with it, to test and expand its limits.  

Just as a canvas and paint compels the painter, so too does sugar compel my work.  I love manipulating it, twisting it, forming and shaping and sculpting it, even painting with it.  I’m drawn to the theatrics and play of light and shadow, washes of bold, contrasting and complementary colors, and both figurative and abstract subject matter defined by a whimsical, escapist bent. I love the Dark Beautiful. 

My work is grounded and informed by my passion for, and involvement in, the fine arts, the underground and alternative/punk music scene and the decorative and ornamentally unique and obscure.  I’ve a penchant for confectionery work that is architecturally interesting, challenging and delivered with a punk rock ethos. With this and you in mind, my goal is to listen and learn, collaborate and inspire, and architect a confectionery creation of elegant whimsy and elevated pastiche.

–Dante