Sideshow Remembers Fine Artist Dan Colonna

“Creation is a great healer!” – Dan Colonna

Art has the power to connect communities through a shared visual language of beauty, imagination, and passion. Creativity and curiosity inspire us to imagine surreal, exciting new worlds or different ways to understand our own reality. Art takes on a life of its own, immortalizing its creator and its subject for generations to come.

We were deeply saddened to hear of the recent passing of our dear friend, fine artist Dan Colonna, after a long battle with brain cancer. Over the years, we have been proud to collaborate with him and witness firsthand his determination and captivating artistic vision. His immense talent, undaunted spirit, and unique perspective are represented in each and every brushstroke he put into his life’s passion.

Many members of the Sideshow family knew Dan Colonna not just as a peer and collaborator but as a true friend. We have laughed with him, traveled with him, and created with him. Anthony Mestas shares, “Dan and I go way back, well over 25 years. We became friends over our mutual love of the ‘garage kit’ figure model hobby … monsters, Japanese sculptors, and dimensional art in general. I had the pleasure of working with Dan as part of the writing staff at Amazing Figure Modeler magazine, which strengthened our friendship. We went to conventions together, we compared notes, bounced artistic ideas and inspiration off each other. It’s a rarity that you meet people later in life that you consider a true friend, and family as well … Dan was that person. He will be truly missed.”

About Dan Colonna

Inspired by a fascination with classical painting methods, Dan was driven from a young age to pursue a career in the arts. He extensively researched the masters of antiquity, then adapted his own methods based on the works of Bosch, Caravaggio, Dalí, and many more. His own style then evolved into a vision of classical realism, with drawing, oil painting, and even three-dimensional figure painting, using his own sculpted creations as a base. He primarily focused on portraits and always found himself coming back to his true love of classic monsters.

In 2013, Dan was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an extremely aggressive brain cancer, and was told he had mere months to live. Instead, he defied the odds given by doctors and by his disease and powered on for 11 more years, and in the process became one of the longest living glioblastoma patients in the world.

His journey was not without its complications, though. Neurological limitations challenged his work style, and instead of giving up, he chose to adapt and let his subconscious guide his work into a series of surreal “bio-scape” drawings representing his new emotional and physical landscape. And through it all, the support of family and friends enabled him to further explore the outer limits of his artistic perspective.

Dan’s work with Sideshow incorporated both pop culture print releases through Sideshow’s Fine Art Program and work on the three-dimensional figural art. He had a hand in many fan-favorite pieces over the years, from Dinosauria to Doctor Doom, as well as a print portrait of Count Orlok from Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens. Dan also created original works for the dark fantasy horror series Court of the Dead, bringing his unique talents to these subjects close to our hearts.

About his work, Anna van Slee shares, “Dan’s art provided a window into the soul. That was all the more amazing for fictional characters, like the Court of the Dead, because he was building that soul with every brushstroke. Dan was insightful, but also collaborative. He brought an element of gratitude and joy to every project, and it made working with him an absolute pleasure — something to look forward to.”

Dan gifted a painting of Court of the Dead’s Xiall to Sideshow, where it has been proudly displayed in our interior offices as a source of inspiration and the spirit of artistic collaboration.

In 2017, Sideshow was proud to create an Artist Profile spotlighting Dan Colonna’s journey and showcasing his creative process, even through the difficulty of his diagnosis. You can watch that feature and learn more about him here:

For more of his works, you can visit Dan Colonna Fine Art and his Instagram, where many of his awe-inspiring creations can be viewed with captions and commentary from Dan himself.

Our hearts are with Dan Colonna’s family, friends, and fans as he leaves behind a legacy of creativity and perseverance. May his visions of the surreal and the monstrous continue to inspire us to see beyond the limits we’re given in the pursuit of living. In his own words, “I have come to understand that life sometimes chooses a different trail to cross. The necessity of being able to adapt is an important lesson.”