Allen Stamper @ artavita

Allen Stamper

Location:

I have almost always worked from life, to smell the sweat, the movement, caution, to experience the strength and on rare instances shared passion. My subjects, writers, musicians, Drs, dancers, prostitutes and musicians, and while painting in that shared intimate space is when I feel most alive

My work is represented in Great Britain, Amsterdam, Sweden, Japan, Korea, as well as throughout the United States and Canada. and though I've given as much away as I've sold, I've also had successful solo shows in NYC, Hawaii and Ct, as well as participating in numerous group exhibitions, and if the work around you is very alive , a special experience is born, though always ephemeral.

Portfolio:

To paint

THIS IS AS CLOSE TO THE TRUTH AS I'M WILLING TO TELL
Born and raised in Hawaii, my mother moved my sister and I to Edgewater NJ in 1960, a miles swim across the river to NYC, which I did that first year at thirteen
. The move precipitated my leaving home in 1962 at age fifteen.
Making my way to the Bahamas, I worked aboard boats as a diver. until I was able to get back home in 1964.

I studied with Joe Ferer, at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, while apprenticing painting conservation and boat building with my father, Willson Stamper.
Circumstances changed again and I landed in a cabin in Nova Scotia, working on Lobster and Salmon boats until the desire to create outweighed the need to be alone.
I moved to NYC in 1965, worked in a sculpture factory and lived in a Lower East side tenement where when not working I sculpted and drank had many affairs and fights and counted myself lucky to survive.

My style reflects both formalism and the simultaneous deconstruction of classical method, an attempt to break free of existing paradigms and reach a brutal frankness about work and identity.

“Transfiguration”

My subject was Samantha/painting from life in my Honolulu studio

“Sarah In Abstract”

The subject is a filmmaker and visual artist and working live with other artist is always complex, in this case it was a pleasure as we saw this effort as successful and it was the beginning of several other collaborations

“Zoe with Birds”

Zoe, a lyrical transience always accompanies her

“Masha, Her Therapist and the Analytical conundrum”

poking fun at psychology and its often
terrible seriousness

“Land of Water and Mist”

An imaginary work that has spanned seventeen years and many iterations. This section represents ten feet of an overall twenty three feet, but the painting
which connected the two halves was destroyed during mounting the canvas on masonite

“The Old Sculptor”