October
12 - November 2
Tim
Allen
The
Art of Performance -
- The Performance of Art
photo: Sarah Lavigne
Tim Allen, Fantasy in Three, detail, oil on birch panel, 28" x 76"
Opening
Reception: Oct. 17, 5 - 8 PM
The Windham Art Gallery is pleased
to present an exhibition in the front gallery by October's
Featured Artist, Tim Allen. The Art of Performance,
the Performance of Art, on display October 12-November
2, includes an installation of new paintings by Allen
and an opportunity for viewers to observe Allen as
he works on a large painting during gallery hours (Sun-Thurs,
12-5 PM). There will also be an exhibit in the back
gallery of Small Works by all gallery members that
will be on display until November 2.
For The Art of Performance, The Performance of Art,
Tim Allen decided to "perform," by working
on a large painting in the gallery, after he began
to consider how an audience could feed the creative
process. "Lately, " Tim Allen said, "I
find myself reflecting on the relationship between
artist and witness, and I can’t help comparing
my experience to that of a performance artist. I imagine
this audience as sustenance, as oxygen feeding the
flames of creativity, urging the performer on to ever-greater
depths of self-expression and risk-taking. And while
it may be true that my paintings find an audience upon
completion, the entirety of my creative process involves
me, alone in the studio, with no witness in sight (except,
perhaps, for my dog)."
Allen, whose paintings are in numerous private and
public collections, garnered a lot of attention for
his work when it was displayed as part of Brattleboro
Museum and Art Center's In the Zone exhibit in 2005.
He is known for his extraordinary "treescapes" in
which bits of sky, bright or diffuse, are reflected,
for example, through stark, white birch trees, or slender,
dark oaks snake up through the leafy canopy of trees.
Allen uses photographs as a compositional tool and
paints with oil and cold wax on aluminum or birch panels.
It is the atmosphere around the trees, and how it is
punctuated by the trees’ trunks, branches and
leaves, as much how the trees themselves are “shaped
by the surrounding atmosphere,” which make his
paintings so distinct and startlingly fresh in their
use of color, light and perspective.
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