Current exhibition: Bello // Disegno // Invenzione
The Gallery at Duende, Silo City of Buffalo, NY
April 15 — May 30, 2022
In my figurative artwork, I aim to make portraits that are simultaneously lifelike and ethereal. My projects focus on individuals over prolonged time, often fellow artists with whom I feel a creative resonance.
Drawing on my training in traditional art academies, I use a variety of classical techniques. But for me, the rigorous academic approach has to be counterbalanced by loose expression and experimentation. Much of my studio time goes into tinkering with novel ways to combine elements of drawing, photography, painting and sculpture.
I’m fascinated by how the human form and its fleeting expressions can be melded with abstract elements of geometric design, plant motifs, and the intricacies of nature that usually go unnoticed. In some of my projects, I give up control entirely by hitting the surface with a blowtorch, letting fire build up its own patterns and textures.
Each project leads me on an unpredictable adventure. But the final image must feel true to the essence of the person who inspired it. A successful portrait leads us to contemplate the mystery of a unique individual. And it points out that ultimately, the line between self and other, or human nature and Nature itself, is elusive.
Biography:
Samuel Allison (b. USA, 1982) is an artist, writer and teacher. His creative ethos was honed by training with artists and visionaries around the world. As a teenager he lived in Kathmandu, learning Tibetan thangka painting in a traditional workshop. After studying religion and anthropology at Wesleyan University, he was awarded a fellowship for a yearlong photography and oral history project in Varanasi, India. Since then he’s trained in the fundamentals of craftsmanship at the Boston Academy of Realist Art, the Port Townsend School of Woodworking, and the Barcelona Academy of Art. For a year he apprenticed with sculptor and furniture maker Seth Rolland on the Olympic Peninsula. Now living near Niagara Falls, he’s completing an MFA and teaching observational drawing at the University at Buffalo, New York. His next solo exhibition will be at the Gallery at Duende in Buffalo this spring.
