Adam Dant was born in 1967 in Cambridge, England. He earned a Graphic Design BA from the Liverpool School of Art, and then went on to earn his Fine Art Printmaking MA from the Royal College of Art (Wikipedia, n.d.). Dant gained popularity in the late 1990s by handing out copies of Donald Parsnips Daily Journal, one of his first projects (The Guardian, 2012). This was an 8-page pamphlet that he would create using the world around him as inspiration. This journal appeared daily for five years, and when asked about it in an interview, Dant said:
“Donald Parsnips Daily Journal as an operation had the same notion of there being an absence of mediation, just as the work of art traditionally has no mediation between artist and viewer. This is how I imagined that a newspaper could become a work of art, handed directly to its readership. The pamphlet often embodied the general zeitgeist of wherever I happened to produce it that day in a ‘Dadaist’ fashion. It appeared in French, German, Italian, and, while I was in Egypt, in Arabic produced on papyrus”.
(Luxury Defined, 2016)
From there, Dant continued to develop his skills and produce interesting art pieces. He became well known for his very detailed work of the world he observed around him, often incorporating an elaborate story. Much of Dante’s art depicts “the interconnectedness of everything,” with map-like layouts being the common theme in a lot of his work (Art Plural Gallery, 2011). A perfect example of his art that exhibits these themes is Treasurers of Hackney, which Dant created in 2012. This hand colored lithograph creation has strong lines of roads that intertwine and create the map of the city. It is a highly detailed piece, and is reminiscent of the output of an 18th-century press (The Guardian, 2012).
His work is also well known for its satirical contex, often blending wit and humor with social commentary, as can be seen in WHY DON’T YOU GO UPSTAIRS. In this piece, a woman can be seen wearing a diamond earring, instructed to think about how lucky she is, perhaps as a message to the wealthy class.
Art critic Ken Johnson notes that Dant “offers a winning combination of masterly comic draftsmanship and ambitious, eccentric imagination” (Johnson, 2005). A large piece of his that displays his imagination and creativity is Community bed (2002).
In this drawing, Dant has created a scene that at first glance looks to be a bed. However, with further inspection the viewer will find that it is also a scene of a busy city. This image incorporates both aspects of a bed and city to bring Dant’s interesting vision of a “community bed” to life. This piece also brings up the idea of the world we access in our sleep, challenging the viewer to imagine the universe we enter in our dreams. Dant creates pieces that stretch the imagination and invite the viewer to look at his work with more focus on the little details he put into them.
Sources:
Artnet. n.d. “Donald Parsnips Daily Journal”. Accessed February 20, 2020. http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/reviews/robinson/robinson1-22-13.asp
Artnet. n.d. “Treasures of Hackney”. Accessed February 20, 2020. http://www.artnet.com/artists/adam-dant/treasures-of-hackney-a-xcEtZSp5YO-a5BD-R_4hiQ2
Artnet. n.d. “London Enraged”. Accessed February 20, 2020. http://www.artnet.com/artists/adam-dant/london-enraged-N8wrZBsdUnFo63_xHcfciw2
Artnet. n.d. “London Enraged”. Accessed February 20, 2020. http://www.artnet.com/artists/adam-dant/why-dont-you-go-upstairs-pdv_6pxRz-jgi6I3911mNA2
Art Plural Gallery. 2011. “Adam DANT”. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20121016220202/http://artpluralgallery.com/1-en-art-a29-bio_adam-dant.html#.VCUFL5VO4qQ/
Luxury Defined. 2016. “In the Studio with Artist Adam Dant.” Luxury Defined, December 7 2016. Written. https://www.christiesrealestate.com/blog/in-the-studio-with-artist-adam-dant/
Johnson, Ken. “ART IN REVIEW; Adam Dant.” New York TImes. September 23, 2005. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/23/arts/art-in-review-adam-dant.html
drawersdrawerblog 
Adam Dant’s artwork really struck a cord with me, in viewing the large amount of detail he placed in his pieces. The Community Bed is especially interesting to me, and how he encourages viewers to think about the dream worlds / communities they visit at night, and just how detailed they may be if we consider them to all take place in this deep, connected “community,” inside our minds.
I also like how he was able to show such a boisterous and comical message with his charcoal and watercolor WHY DON”T YOU GO UPSTAIRS. The childlike scrawl outlines and bright, cartoony colors contrasts the underlining message of the real world problems to the wealthy upper-class, which is both entertaining and humbling.
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^Allison.R
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I was most intrigued by Dant’s “London Enraged” not just because it is the cover photo. The focal point of “London Enraged” is the explosion between the legs of a giant man/statue. The backdrop to the scene is a rippling cloud caused by the explosion. This produces movement in the piece that tells a story about the riots in London is then produced by small bubbles of events tied to where they took place. The high detail makes it impossible to take in the work from far away, it must be studied closely to understand the story Dant is telling. I think this is ingenious because it forces the viewer to create a schema about important events; to bond those events to places they may or may not already know just so they can assess the piece. – Bethany S.
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I really enjoy Adam Dant’s work overall, I love particularly his pieces with bright eye catching colors where your eyes are just getting drawn to a million different things at once, just like in Treasurers of Hackney picture and London Engraged as well. Although your eyes are moving everywhere and there is so much going on in each of these pieces, I love how, like you said, everything is still interconnected. With Treasurers of Hackney there’s multiple different streets going in all different directions but they are all connected as one and with London Enraged all the different icons and pictures are pointing down to a single point in the middle and creating a focal point with the statue pictured.
-sarah nelson
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Before reading your blog post, I had never thought about maps as drawings or art pieces. Dant’s “Treasures of Hackney” caught my attention immediately, At first it just looked like a common map, and then I looked at the close up version you provided in your post. The detail is stunning: from the individual blades of grass, to the animals in the fields, to the sidewalks and driveways in some of the buildings. The way the artwork is draw also communicates several feelings. The warm colors make it appear like the town is welcoming and friendly, and also very intertwined and interconnected as you emphasized in your post. “Treasures of Hackney” made me reconsider my assumptions about what consists of “art.”
– Naomi Mathew
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