Johnny Depp

A lover of the supernatural, Depp has long incorporated tarot into his life, exploring the history behind this centuries-old tradition. As he’s reflected, “I've always been tremendously curious about tarot… and there's a great art to the cards”.

Using tarot as a vessel for storytelling, in his 2024 collection Tarot, Depp riffs on the established card format. He depicts captivating figures from his life, dreams and subconscious mind. In this collection, he has created four tarot-inspired artworks: ‘The Lovers’, ‘The Emperor’, ‘The Empress’ and ‘Strength’. While referencing the ancient deck, they are imbued with his own characters and narratives, and imagined in a uniquely symbolic style.

An imaginative storyteller, Johnny Depp has long found freedom through art. In his role as a portrait painter, we have seen his success in capturing the psychology of his sitters, drawing out their essence and complex identities beyond heroic appearances. His artistic restlessness and exploration know no bounds, and he has consciously embarked upon a renaissance that allows his life to be filled with that which fulfils him.

Johnny’s very fluent, expressive style is in the vein of the artists we recognise as Neo-Expressionists. Artists in this movement abandon any sense of wanting to imitate nature and instead seek to express their emotional experience in art centred around their emotions and inner turmoils.

Neo-Expressionist art, just like Johnny’s art, is characterised by intense subjectivity, highly textural applications of paint and other materials, vividly contrasting colours and imagery that tells a story. Influences on Johnny’s art have included working alongside the noted Neo-Expressionist American painter and film-maker Julian Schnabel, and his early recognition of the genius of another Neo-Expressionist: Jean-Michel Basquiat.

From his prolific film career creating some of Hollywood’s most iconic characters, to his recent time on stage with Jeff Beck, the accompanying album release, and a 2023 European tour with supergroup the Hollywood Vampires, Johnny Depp’s creative restlessness and exploration knows no bounds. Furthermore, he has for many years established himself as an art collector of great merit, with some of the world’s most coveted names in contemporary art in his private collection.

From Basquiat to Banksy, Depp has amassed an extraordinary portfolio that demonstrates his love for visual art. However, it is less widely known that Depp is also an artist and creator in his own right, having discovered an innate love for drawing and painting in his childhood, long before music and film first featured in his life. With his sketchbook as a permanent fixture in his hand, rarely is there a time when Depp isn’t sketching or conceptualising the world around him. His mind rejects the ordinary, challenges the accepted and oscillates between the pictorial and the lyrical, giving rise to his own multi-layered expressionistic style.

This world-first release proved to be our fastest-selling collection to date, selling out in just hours. Johnny Depp's collection Friends & Heroes saw him focus on people he has known well, and who have inspired him as a person.

Working from photographic references each image in Johnny's debut collection has been stripped back to a simpler and iconic portrayal of the subject, which Johnny has then developed and energised with his characteristic freehand flourishes. Johnny's art exists at the intersection of 'Pop Art' and 'Street Art'. Recognisable images of people in popular culture are recast in vibrant, bright colours, and overlayed with the energy and wit of Street Art. The result is a series of iconic images of media figures that have moved beyond the impersonal graphic simplicity of Pop Art. It's Pop Art with feeling.

The iconic figures in this new collection are actors Heath Ledger and River Phoenix, musician Bob Marley and writer Hunter S Thompson, all of whom were either friends of Johnny, or an inspiration to him, thus adding a real emotional weight to the pieces. Working from photographic references, each image was stripped back to a simpler and iconic portrayal of the subject, which Johnny then developed and energised with his characteristic freehand flourishes.

“I’d like to see these four people together,” said Johnny about his new subjects in an interview with Castle Fine Art. “It would be fascinating. All legends absolutely. The early demise of Heath, the early demise of River, those are tragedies. “They didn’t have enough time on this earth, but in the time that they did have, they certainly planted their individuality, their uniqueness, their world, their heart, their emotions, their sense of humour out there into the world so we know them. So they said a lot in their short lives.

This image captures the emotional exhaustion Johnny was feeling when he completed the artwork in 2021, as he was about to enter the fifth year of a very difficult period of his life. He added the “five” tally-mark annotation in recognition of this moment in time.

The original reference for the art is a still from a shoot for Dior’s ‘Sauvage’, directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino. Johnny chose this particular image in honour of Dior and the loyalty they’ve always shown him. To Johnny, the image symbolizes the importance of truth and the steadfast support of those who remain close to you during challenging times.

Traditionally being seen as the form in which many artists have come to be remembered by, self-portraits offer insights not only into the artist’s life, surroundings and artistic ideas but also into their state of mind. When creating a self-portrait, the artist represents his psychological features as well as his emotions, bringing out a feeling that allows the viewer to see the subject’s character.

Infused with a celestial undertone, this fantastical series of mixed media screen prints overlaid with gold detail is rooted in childhood memories. In his new collection, Depp embraces the surreal by infusing an automatic quality into his mark-making, skilfully working over textured backgrounds, some of which are composed of Rizla papers, others thick layers of spray paint.

Depp adeptly incorporates fragments from his waking life into these layers of artistry. From these original works, The Bunnyman Genesis collection of limited-edition pieces was created. Having experimented with The Bunnyman image for years, Depp has now fully envisioned him in this bold new series.

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