"The Outwin 2016" Finalist: Dean Allison

Out of over 2,500 entries in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, 43 artists have their work shown in the exhibition “The Outwin 2016: American Portraiture Today.” Read more about one of the finalists, Dean Allison. 

What about the sitter inspired you?

Most of my subjects to date are people that I have a personal relationship with – family, friends, mentors, and members of my community that I admire or wish to know better. My process of life casting is an intense experience and it is an opportunity to have a shared experience with someone. My work documents people and it captures this shared moment in time.

This is a portrait of a man who collected and sorted bottles, cans, plastic and cardboard as the recycling manager in my community. He is a shadow -- ever present but hardly noticed; he is a commonly seen face but unknown, a mystery character. He seems to live on the fringe of society. I have wondered about how he lives, his age, and how he wound up here. 

As I have gotten to know him, I’ve learned that he is an artist. He shares his work within our community of makers and other artists where I live. He makes art from other people’s garbage, creating fantasy worlds through installations of sculpture. He is a student of French and classic literature. He writes poetry and when he speaks with you it is short and thoughtful. His face tells a story, and moments spent with him generate more questions than answers.

How did your work develop from idea to execution?

I wanted to do a portrait of Grover to learn more about him and to capture the details of his physical appearance. My practice is very process and material orientated. He sat for me to make the life mask and again to document him in pictures. Now when he makes his rounds to collect recycling, he seeks me out. The piece is cast glass and painted. Although it is of a specific person, one with a unique story and intersection with my life, the final piece documents a face any of us may have seen in a crowd or passed on the street. Appearance can tell us part of a story. The viewer fills in the rest and our perceptions, judgment, and reactions tell us just as much about ourselves as the subject. 

What relationship do the materials have to the meaning?

I use glass as a vehicle to explore the figure. Like people, glass can be transparent, opaque, fragile, strong, sharp, and broken; it can have depth and be exquisitely detailed. It is a material that compliments and communicates ideas of identity and perception. 

How does the piece fit within your larger body of work?

I am interested in common people, their functions in society, observing and recording their characteristics and relationships, and documenting individuals over time. I am also interested in identity - emotional identity, identity developed through relationships and experience, how we perceive others, and how we are perceived. I am interested in both the beauty and ugliness in people. My work and this piece capture physical details and cause the viewer to question who the person is and why they matter. This piece is the pinnacle of my efforts to capture a universal portrait of an individual on the fringe of society that is integral to community and societal structure in a way that the viewer may or may not know. 

You can see Allison’s work in “The Outwin 2016: American Portraiture Today,” up now through Jan. 8, 2017. Also, be sure to vote in our People’s Choice Competition.