To paint by Allen Stamper

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.