ALLEN, Mark Andrew
Blue Jays
48x48"
This work with the intent on "homage to the blue jays", is a masterpiece that must be experienced in person.
"When explaining my paintings to someone that has never seen them before, I like to say that my work is similar to riding a bicycle on the busy street. You see a lot of different imagery and hear snippets of conversation whizzing by you a second or two at a time. Just a sentence or two as you pass by. I incorporate that concept into my work. We are constantly bombarded everyday with images and words. Every second, there is a new email, a text message, an interesting commercial, a new song on the radio, a bird singing out the window, a loud garbage truck. All of this makes up the reality of our day-to-day lives. I edit that and incorporate them into my work.
A lot of the imagery I choose harks back to childhood memories of feeling safe, carefree, and happy which is welcome in these uncertain times. If it feels good for one reason or another, I know I have the right picture.
The mixed media of 'found objects' and pop art is a nod to Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, and Warhol, all of whom I have met. The drips are a nod to the 'New York School Action Painters' of the Fifties, mainly Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, and DeKooning. The 'push and pull' of the colors contrasting each other is also a nod to DeKooning and Gorky. The checkerboard pattern is a nod to Kandinsky. The random choices of content nods to Basquiat. Other important influences include Larry Rivers, Jim Dine, Christo, Frank Gehry, Ed Moses, Ed & Nancy Keinholtz, (I have met all of them) James Rosenquist, Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell, Richard Diebenkorn, Chris Burden, Nancy Rubins, Marcel Duchamp, Henri Matisse, and above all Pablo Picasso.
It all brings the work to real time. Each one of my works strive to represent what it is like to live today. The most important job of an artist is to represent the time of which he lives."