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Richard Allen Biography
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Richard Allen was born and raised in Sydney, and owes a debt to the experience of low-altitude flying, often over long tracts of wheat lands and vineyards, from where he has gained a great deal of inspiration for his abstract landscapes. Allen is an artist who relishes experimentation and evolution, though is not afraid to return to earlier discoveries, themes and styles. His latest paintings, although abstract, display a dazzling palette of exuberant colour, suggestive of strength and energy. The artist uses strong geometric or linear forms, which he then softens with either round shapes or arabesques, suggestive of calligraphy, musical clefs or trailing fronds of vegetation – inevitably suggesting masculine and feminine counterparts. One longs to run one's fingers along the canvas of these paintings, because of the exciting surface textures. The impasto stippling, rippling, scraping and embossed effects and the tough shiny varnish give depth and an added tactile dimension to the work. “This is a very exciting body of work in which the artist has carefully and thoughtfully balanced energy and calm, movement and stillness, exuberance and restraint, geometrical and natural, complex coloration and simpler monochromes, to produce works which are at once forceful and elegant and imbued with undeniable joie de vivre.” Terence Rodrigues, February 2006
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