Connecticut artist Peter Anton serves up ‘Just Desserts’ at Fairfield University Art Museum

One avid audience for Peter Anton’s art is the sort of person who says “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.” That’s because Anton’s aesthetic is so sweet. He makes giant sculptures based on candy and delights in creating an enormous half-eaten boxes of fancy donuts, a flipped-over ice cream bar or a shiny candle apple.

Anton’s latest solo exhibition, “Just Desserts,” is at the Fairfield University Art Museum through July 27. Among the new work on display is a 4-foot wide French cruller donut and a 7-foot tall Pop-Tart.

The artworks are clean, bright and colorful idealized confections that take on a humungous scale yet still seem startlingly realistic. The candy, cakes and other fake food look like they are glistening, shimmering and even oozing or melting. They are extremely attractive and inviting, so beautiful that you can easily get over the disappointment of not being able to eat them.

Anton, who was born in New Haven and is a longtime Fairfield County resident, exhibits internationally but hasn’t had many exhibits in the state. Anton said he’s particularly popular in Germany, where he’s had at least half a dozen big exhibitions. He’s also exhibited in Greece, the Netherlands and throughout the U.S., including at the Austin Museum of Arts in Texas, the Madden Museum of Arts in Colorado, the Fresno Metropolitan Art Museum in California among many others. His installation “Sugar & Gomorrah” at Art Basel Miami in 2012 memorably involved a working roller coaster.

A 2020 show in Connecticut, “Sweet Dreams: Confectionery Sculpture by Peter Anton” at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, broke attendance records at that gallery even though it happened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The director of the Fairfield University gallery, Carey Mack Weber, was aware of the Lyman Allen success and sought to bring Anton to Fairfield. “Just Desserts” had overwhelming interest from the get-go, with hundreds of reservation requests for a special talk on food and art held before Thursday’s opening reception.

Anton is self-taught as an artist. “I started doing paint-by-numbers kits as a kid,” he said. “I entered art competitions in Connecticut. I went to film school but I quit. My first solo exhibition was in Washington D.C., then I went to New York.”

His particular form of art is something that he couldn’t have mastered at many art schools. It requires a massive workspace and a lot of resin, which can be toxic and hard to work with. “Oh my god! So messy!” he said. His other main materials are acrylic and oil paints, clay and, for the underlying structure of the sculptures, wood, wire and metal pieces.

The subject matter hasn’t changed.

“Almost from the beginning it was food,” Anton said. “My first sculpture was a giant TV dinner. After the TV dinner I did raw packaged fish heads,” which turned out to be a breakthrough piece that got attention from galleries.

“I like the way sweets and foods bring people together,” Anton said. “I like the way food stimulates memories in people. Everybody gets passionate and excited about.

Anton said his opening receptions always involve people coming up to him and sharing thoughts about their favorite candies. “They get emotional. It’s very gratifying,” he said.

You could call it research or inspiration, but Anton said “I eat chocolates every day.” Some of his favorite things to sculpt happen to be chocolates. He loves doing chocolate gift box arrangements, painstakingly juxtaposing the colors and patterns of the candies.

He also indulges in less taste-based explorations. “When I’m researching, say, the Pop-Tart, I’ll buy dozens of flavors of Pop-Tarts,” he said. “I’ll examine them with a magnifying glass. I’ll put butter on them because some people like to put butter on them. Sometimes, if I’m doing a cake, I’ll bake a cake to get clues. Years ago I had to make gummy bears and I had to change the resins I usually use because the texture wasn’t right.”

All this experimentation is not a piece of cake. “Once, a cherry danish exploded,” Anton said, still unnerved by the experience. Other construction issues are more subtle. “If a fly gets frozen in the resin,” he explained, it can ruin an entire sculpture. So he needs to cover the pieces as they dry, just as you might put a cover over a real-life fresh cake.

He can’t say he likes eating every candy he turns into a sculpture. “You can sick of the food you’re working on.” His instinct is mainly “creating work that people identify with or have good memories of, things that people can connect to. Sometimes it’s just the color. A box of chocolates can take on many colors.”

One unlikely inspiration was when Anton went to see Bette Midler in the musical “Hello, Dolly!” several times on Broadway. The show’s discussion of French pastries led him to sculpt some gigantic macarons.

Those who buy his work are similarly drawn more by aesthetic taste than their taste buds. Anton said he once sold a sculpture of sliced cantaloupes, split so you could see the seeds inside. The collector who purchased the sculpture was asked if he liked cantaloupes. He didn’t. “I’m disgusted by this, but I’m drawn to it,” Anton recalled him saying.

You’d expect that candy companies or ice cream stores would be snapping up Anton’s work to display in their businesses or shops, but surprisingly he said that’s not usually the case. “Ninety-nine percent of it is bought for private collections.”

Peter Anton’s “Just Desserts” is on display through July 27 in the Walsh Gallery at the Fairfield University Art Museum, 200 Barlow Road, Fairfield. Gallery hours are Tuesdays through Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. with extended hours on Thursdays until 8 p.m. Admission is free. fairfield.edu/museum.