Johnny Depp Unveils His First Sculpture at Contemporary Istanbul
The actor, who publicly revealed his art practice seven years ago after decades of making work privately, presents a 6.5-foot brooding half-rabbit, half-human figure titled The Bunnyman
A few years ago, Johnny Depp was baffled by a drawing that his five-year old son, Jack, made. The brooding half rabbit and half human figure was not only eerie for his otherworldly likeness, but the sketch also had an uncanny resemblance to a figure that had kept appearing in the Academy Award-nominated actor’s dreams as a child. In his sleep, the character always appeared both as a friend and a foe, standing at the entrance to his childhood home’s basement.
This very same persona now stands in bronze at 6.5-foot height in the ongoing Contemporary Istanbul. The outdoor sculpture, titled The Bunnyman, is Johnny Depp’s first three-dimensional output after making art mainly behind closed doors for around three decades. The very same figure has, in fact, been the protagonist in a range of paintings, drawings, and prints, some of which are currently on view among two hundred artworks in Depp’s ongoing survey, “A Bunch of Stuff,” at the Modern Art Museum Shanghai.
“You couldn’t quite tell what the deal was with the guy, but you definitely felt that at the very least there was something benevolent about it,” Depp tells Galerie. “He was a benevolent creature, like he was there to warn me in my dream about going into the basement.”
The 21st edition of the art fair, which occupies its brand-new venue in the Ottoman-era shipping yard Tersane by Istanbul’s storied peninsula, the Golden Horn, hosts the sculpture through a collaboration with the Sigg Art Foundation. This is in fact the actor’s sophomore act in the Istanbul fair. The foundation exhibited a portion of their large collection in the fair’s 20th edition, featuring one of his 1998-dated gothic paintings alongside work by the likes of Korakrit Arunanondchai, Meriem Bennani, and Louisa Gagliardi.
Depp met the foundation’s founder, Belgian art collector Pierre Sigg, in the ancient town of AlUla in Saudi Arabia some years ago, which has led to the current unexpected outing in the Turkish metropole on the cusp between Asia and Europe. Sigg himself encouraged Depp, who also makes music, to translate his favorite subject into a new dimension. The mythic humanized animal demurely sits outside the fair, facing the sea breeze between the show’s two main exhibition halls, close to the venue where daily talks take place until the show’s closing on Sunday. Both a guardian and a threat, the hulking eccentric crosses his arms with confidence while clutching a sword. Looking down on the viewer with his slightly towering height, he looks tragic as well as alarming.
Depp created the work in Milan’s famed metal foundry, Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, where Alberto Giacometti and Lucio Fontana also produced their sculptures. He and the foundation settled on the 5,000-year old sculpting technique of lost-wax casting, which envelops the original wax model until it melts out. Sigg Foundation’s vice president, Maurine Sigg, tells Galerie that they chose the technique to be able to capture every fingerprint Depp left on the original cast. “You are able to see every tool mark and textural character on the sculpture,” she adds.
Elevated by the sharp September light, the sculpture lures fairgoers not only due to its maker’s star power but for its intentional posture and attention-demanding surface. The sculpture in fact had its debut in the Shanghai show in a completely different environment where it met with visitors in a dim indoor setting. Sigg explains that this was a choice by Depp to make the sculpture’s textural depth traceable through artificial lighting. “We enjoy the contrast in different experiences between two venues where bronze is celebrated in both ways,” she explains.
Both pensive and performative, the figure in many ways follows in the footsteps of its maker’s career in acting. Depp’s most cinematic work explores the complexity of one’s search for their footing in society, both internally and with physical particularities, through protagonists such as Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, or Sweeney Todd, and here, the bronze antagonist similarly displays his emotional bruises outwardly with comical traits and a daring gesture while still remaining enigmatic. “The Bunnyman is Depp himself in many ways,” says Sigg, “the figure is a friend, a protector, and most importantly an observant, not always taking action but standing still.”
Contemporary Istanbul is open at Tersane Istanbul until September 27, 2026.