Fear is a pow­er­ful moti­va­tor. It can pro­voke fight, flight, or, in the case of Provo-​born, RISD edu­cated painter Ricky All­man, beauty. A child­hood col­ored by expo­sure to reli­gious fatal­ism had the for­tu­itous out­come of man­i­fest­ing into pal­pa­ble ten­sion, and oth­er­worldly unease, in the artist’s stun­ning acrylic paint­ings. “I was born and raised in Utah, endur­ing weekly earth­quake drills at school and lessons about the apoc­a­lypse and the ‘evils of the world’ on Sun­days,” All­man told 20×200. “I felt some­what safe and pro­tected, sur­rounded by Mor­mons and the Rocky Moun­tains, but as I grew older, I got a bit of courage and ven­tured out of my home­town.” After earn­ing an AS Degree in Fine Art from Utah Val­ley Uni­ver­sity in Orem, the artist struck out of the state and moved to Mass­a­chu­setts, where he picked up a BFA in paint­ing at Mas­sArt. Work from this period, which can be seen on the artist’s web­site, con­tains many of Allman’s sig­na­ture ele­ments: frac­tured land­scape com­bined with dis­ar­tic­u­lated archi­tec­tural pas­sages, com­plex manip­u­la­tions of space and plane, and a bright swaths of technicolor.

After Mas­sArt All­man went on to get his MFA at RISD, where his tech­nique sharp­ened to a for­mi­da­ble degree of inci­sive­ness. His two series from that time period — the White Paint­ings, which focus largely on build­ings and infra­struc­ture, and the Land­scape, paint­ings that call to mind the tow­er­ing peaks of Allman’s native envi­ron­ment — show an increas­ing agility in dis­sect­ing space to pro­duce tone and ambiance, as well as a grow­ing con­fi­dence in the effec­tive­ness of his psy­che­delic palette. In recent years All­man has beau­ti­fully mar­ried these two visual lan­guages, com­bin­ing organic land­scape ele­ments with the geo­met­ric ghosts of man made struc­tures. “Build­ings and nature can be so far removed from each other in our minds,” All­man told Jux­tapoz mag­a­zine. “It is inspir­ing for me to see where they meet, col­lide, and work with and against each other.” All­man says that he is influ­enced by a diverse range of artists, from the spa­cial work of sculp­tor Sarah Sze and the pat­terned obser­va­tions of pho­tog­ra­pher Ed Butyn­sky, to the bright, planer work of the Leipzig School.

Though much of Allman’s work con­tains a sort of apoc­a­lyp­tic strain of anx­i­ety, his most recent series of paint­ings embrace the joy of life’s uncer­tainty, radi­at­ing opti­mism and sin­cere hope. “I’m con­fi­dent we as a species will fig­ure out how to make things work,” said the artist. “As many prob­lems as we face right now things are actu­ally pretty good for us rel­a­tive to what peo­ple have faced his­tor­i­cally.” Allman’s recent work is pop­u­lated by bursts of joy­ful con­fetti and neon swirls, rich with benign pres­ence. Human fig­ures have also appeared for the first time, a ten­dency All­man had pre­vi­ously avoided in hopes of cre­at­ing work that was expe­ri­en­tial rather than voyeuris­tic. The appear­ance of peo­ple in Allman’s futur­is­tic envi­ron­ments is inter­est­ing not only because it helps the viewer under­stand how the space would be nav­i­gated should they enter it, but it seems to invite us into a pos­i­tive poten­tial future, shaped by cre­ativ­ity, inge­nu­ity and free­dom from fear.

Ricky All­man is an Assi­tant Pro­fes­sor of Draw­ing and Paint­ing at the Uni­ver­sity of Mis­souri Kansas City. He has had solo shows at Min­nesota State Uni­ver­sity, Gallery Anais in LA and David B Smith Gallery in Den­ver. He will be pre­sent­ing a new body of work at the soon-​to-​be-​opening Daniela Da Prato Gallery in Paris open­ing May 19^th.

All images cour­tesy of the artist.

Tags: Daniela Da Prato Gallery, David B Smith Gallery, Ed Butynsky, Gallery Anais, Leipzig School, MassArt, Painting, Ricky Allman, RISD, Sarah Sze

« Featured Artist: Monica Canilao

Spectrum x Mallick Williams & Co. »

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 21st, 2011 at 5:41 pm and is filed under Art, Painting, Rising Artists.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.