Alan Dent, with nearly 40 years of experience, achieving numerous successes for his work both locally and internationally over the years, is the only known artist in South Africa to work in leather – meaning that he models all the details of his subjects into cowhide leather and then colours them with artist acrylic paints, offering both unpainted leather and fully painted options.
Why his work is so unique is that through the 3D effects that he creates that another human sense, i.e. that of touch which is uniquely incorporated into each piece of work in addition to that of sight.
This quite literally doubles the viewers pleasure in the enjoyment of the work.
Alan came across the carving and modelling of leather during a visit to the South West region of the United States in 1980, where he came into contact with the traditional leather gear as used by the cowhands on the cattle ranches. These hand tooled articles such as saddles, belts, holsters and boots often incorporated the Spanish style of decorative scrolls, oak leaves and numerous other imagery that had originated in Mexico.
Upon his return he arranged to import the range of tools required to perform the various modelling steps and the instruction manuals of the great leather carving legends such as Al Stohlman and Paul Burnett. After he had learned the basics and produced many leather-based articles, he was eventually drawn towards the production of carved leather pictorials.
Art-on-leather means that the subjects and all their fine details such as the horns, tusks, trunks, muscles and even skin texture are carved and modelled into the leather. This particular aspect of the process provided him with considerable early challenges to transform the two-dimensional leather surface into a truly lifelike replica of the subject. The analogy is that the result is somewhere between normal art on canvas and a sculpture.
Besides the high cost of imported cowhide it is probably for this fact that there are so few practitioners working in this art form – it literally took Alan years to perfect the modelling process – especially the requirement to accurately recreate the fine details of the wide variety of subjects such as the eyes, trunks, horns, skin etc. The one comment often associated with the pieces that Alan produces are the exceptional and lifelike depth that they project.
Alan went onto creating many great wildlife pieces featuring all the popular animals, including horses, this could also apply all horse disciplines racing, jumping, dressage etc with his work exhibited in some of our leading lodges, companies and sold to overseas clients from as far afield as Europe, America and Australia. In addition, he has exhibited his African wildlife works at an exhibition in Las Vegas where a number of works were sold.
Alan’s major objective is to produce a wide variety of collectable quality, fine art-on-leather for the discerning admirer looking for art that is different, unique and that is capable of providing ongoing pleasure due to their propensity to become interesting conversation pieces.
Alan maintains a variety of works on various subjects for exhibition purposes, these are also available for purchase or he may be commissioned to create specific pieces for clients of virtually any animals, horse’s wildlife or any subjects
To really get to see this unique 3D effect one needs to see, feel and touch an original and visit the studio and meet with the artist Alan Dent
For more information contact Alan Dent at his studio in Northcliff, Johannesburg mobile 083 443 3571 to arrange a viewing of available works or to observe a demonstration of the art-on-leather techniques.
To view his gallery of works, go to www.AlanDentArt.co.za.
Or contact Digby Wesson Digger Marketing on 011476 9350 or 083 449 5589 [email protected]
