Introduction

William Allen uses sculpture as a metaphor. His is an inward journey giving birth to a subterranean imagery that illuminates both his life story and the stories of others. Focussing on the deeply personal, Allen taps into the universal.

In many of his works Allen explores the shadow side of life where death always lies in wait. He realizes that with death comes liberation, a release of the spirit, transformation, metamorphosis, and the opening of a door to another world. Ironically, in the exploration of this dark realm, Allen infuses his work with life.

The art of aboriginal cultures such as those of Africa, Oceania, the Inuit, and Australia influence and inform Allen's work. Allen feels drawn to this work because of its strong wild, natural spirit. In using the imagery of nature and other recognizable forms, William Allen taps into the raw, vibrant spirit that wants to pulsate through all of us.

Artist’s Statement

I have a primal urge to create. For as long as I can remember I have had the innate ability to work creatively with my hands. My parents, an oral surgeon and a university professor raised me with the expectation that I would become a professional. My education was focussed entirely on science with the intention of becoming a doctor.

Curiosity pushed me to sign up for a poetry class the last semester of my senior year in college. The eccentric instructor tapped into a buried part of me. I’d never encountered anything like his wild, self-destructive, creative Irish spirit. It spoke to me. His class helped me to realize that I didn‚t have a passion for medicine. I decided to forgo medical school.

After college I floundered around for several years working in a variety of jobs: a dry cleaner, roofing, and house-painting. I was depressed and completely dissatisfied with my life. One day while working on a roofing job, one of my co-workers mentioned his desire to learn how to weld. That conversation stayed with me.

A few years and many odd jobs later, I enrolled in a welding class. I had found my passion. With nimble hands and good hand-to-eye coordination working in metal felt natural. I decided to pursue the creative yet practical craft of black-smithing wrought iron.
Enamoured with my new metal-working skills, I soon found myself sculpting small animals. Childhood summers spent at the family cottage on Lake Michigan filled me with a love of animals. In desperate need of a living, I began to sell these works at local art fairs around my home in Indiana

For the next fifteen years I continued to develop my skill as a sculptor of welded animals. Many were life-size. I made glossy eyes and meticulously ground and painted the sculptures so that they almost seemed alive. By now I was selling them at art fairs throughout the country. I began to receive commissions from zoos and public institutions, award and grants. I was becoming moderately successful. But I knew something was missing.

Making animals was no longer enough. I decided to push my work to another level. In 1996 my wife and I moved from our rural northern Michigan hideaway of twenty-odd years to New York City. Throwing myself in that dynamic cauldron, I secretly wanted to come out transformed.

I found a large studio in the D.U.M.B.O. section of Brooklyn amidst hundreds of other artists. There I began to tap into a different part of my creativity. I spent four years of psychoanalysis. In my last year there I shared my studio with an intensely creative artist-musician. His passion and fearless pursuit of art inspired me further. Fear and self-doubt melted away, leaving me with a new-found sense of freedom and confidence.

New York encouraged exploration and experimentation. I developed new techniques, worked in new materials: plaster, epoxy, and earthen matter. I spent hours roaming through the New York art world‚s galleries and museums. The Metropolitan Museum of Art especially drew me with its African and Oceanic art. That art mirrored and evoked discoveries within myself.
My sculptures seemed as characters dramatizing my interior world. I began to place them in groupings around my studio to see what stories might emerge. I saw the importance of drama to my sculpture. The possibilities of collaboration with theatre, music, and dance began to emerge.

In the fall of 2000 I moved back to care for my dying mother. I was profoundly affected. The sculpture in these photos represents work I created during my stay in NYC, during my mother‚s illness, and following her death in November 2001.

One of the first exhibitions I attended at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was the paintings of Richard Poussette-Dart. In his video-taped interview, Poussette-Dart talked about the spiritual journey the artist takes.He said that once those doors are opened, there is no turning back. I am learning that another world exists far vaster than the one we live on the surface. My sculpture is an expression of the life and energy I find in that deeper realm.

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