Widlund Gallery | Illusion & Reality by Allen Stamper

About this event

Tuesday, August 4 - Saturday, September 12

Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM | Sat, 12:00 - 4:00 PM | additional hours by appointment

Reception: Friday, August 7 | 5-7 PM

Allen Stamper

Born to artist parents in the territorial trust of the Hawaiian Archipelago in 1947, an unimaginably different world than it is today, and in this it resembles The Adirondacks, and perhaps it is this more than any other single thing which makes here, like home, a connectedness to a wild world not fully tamed or tethered to the present.

From earliest memory, I associated life with art and the sea as ever present, with my father crossing chaotic seas in boats of his making or sitting by my mother as she painted or sculpted, a small easel in front of me where I tried my best to mimic her beautiful, delicate hand.

It was much later that my father's influence became dominant; his bold creations, the illusions of different realities using his profound imagination and skill, and like many children who saw their parents as special and doing something of unique importance, I followed. Even in all the decades of working at other pursuits, where satisfying want and need were preeminent, but it was always there, the idea of creating and creation, and what life came from, which made all palatable, important, and magical.

My formative education in art has been limited to a few middling periods of study; painting and drawing under a few good teachers, an early apprenticeship in NYC under master sculptor, Eddie Schilacci, endless hours in the Cedar Tavern listening to the rants of older artist, masters of their genres, poets with their inimitable inspiration, or nights often ending in drunken stupor, to wake and work almost frenzied at some new piece I for a moment thought profound.

Rather than bemoan the years of hard work in other fields, the perspective they have offered, in retrospect, is cherished, as without its rich weave, I would not have grown, as without the experience of tragedy, my life would be limited and opaque, and it is the same with joy, but in a different wrapping.

Talking to my Chinese stepmother long ago, who, with her family, had to flee their country as Mao consolidated his grip, it is the sweet and sour that make a whole.

My paintings reflect what I think I see: women are more represented because they are more mysterious; it is they who are the secret and, conversely, the answer to what we are.

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