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Né en 1970, féru d'observer la nature, il développe un mode d’abstraction picturale - techniques mixtes sur panneau -, caractérisée par de vigoureux aplats horizontaux lumineux, rythmés de silhouettes sombres, telles des césures dynamiques.
Comme une page musicale, scandée, œuvrant d'un classicisme ré-interprété du fond/forme perspectif, chaque tableau surgit comme une séquence ininterrompue d'un récit paysager.
Une peinture aux flous inquiets, fascination de rosée et brumes océanes sur des fragments de forces.
Le vent, le ressac... La vague qui vrombit. La tempête qui cesse.
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En l'oeuvre d'ALLEN, l’œil peut saisir des sensations aquatiques, minérales, aurorales ou crépusculaires. Le geste du peintre ici est fort, un tempo incisif qui inscrit le regard dans une suite infinie de partitions encore à imaginer.
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Pierre Lenain
Bruxelles 2017
A.R. Allen is a self-taught Belgian painter.
"My Italian grandfather used to help me with my homework. One day, when I was about seven or eight years old, he showed me how to make a winter landscape in a few brush strokes, with three different pots of white paint on a wooden board.
The speed of execution, the simplicity of his gestures for such a successful result, made a strong impression on me."
“Later, while visiting a chapel being renovated, I watched a workman draw a few lines on the stone he was about to restore. It looked like nothing, but when I stood back I saw the face of a saint. It was magic.“
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This sense of wonder proved decisive in the decision of Anthony Allen to become an artist.
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Most of his paintings are small in scale. They benefit from being seen close up (unlike the work of many other contemporary artists). A first impression tends to group them with landscape.The notion of landscape underlies the work. Yet there is nothing green or growing. If these are landscapes they are entirely mineral. There is surely something else.
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I believe that we are looking at an internal conversation, in which certainty is juxtaposed with random, sharp focus with blur, dampness with aridity, chance with precision. Textures are played against each other: granular against fluid, cracked surfaces against smoothness, speed against deliberation. These small meditations are wonderfully crafted, each one of which is illuminated by a particular light from the harshest to the softest.
It is in the nature of painting to draw from elements in art history, to synthesize, and yet retain a personal vision. Too much art history makes the work derivative, and not enough cuts it off from the culture from which it springs. A.R.Allen manages this balancing act to perfection. We can see the ghost of Turner in the romantic mists and effects of light, that of Max Ernst in the use of chance procedures, of Tapies in the sheer physicality of the work, and yet it cannot be reduced to any of these. It is a solitary achievement, intimate and entirely visual.
Oliver Bevan
Saint Quentin la Poterie 2020