Marc Allen- Fine Art Photography

Marc with 'Untitled C'
Collection of Mary Ellen, Denver, Colorado, USA

Artist's Statement

The series of photographs that make up the work Light Plays draws attention to how we perceive light and make meaning from it.

An aspect of my contemporary art practice explores the human visual system and the higher function of the mind, and how these two interact with and relate to visual fidelity. It questions the truth of visual experience, and asks if we can perceive without manipulating the experience of vision through our own mental perception. Through Light Plays, I want to question how each of us perceives and feels emotional responses to light, to ask whether we can experience the world directly photon by photon, and to share with others my intrigue of how the mind veils true form with layers of mental perception.

Our brain's optical system encodes the waves of light that make up a ‘vision' and creates a short hand, or a category, for each visual item of meaning. A kettle is a kettle because, once we've recognised one for the first time and have its meaning and image encoded in our minds, each time we see one anew we recall its meaning. Like predictive texts on a mobile phone, our minds do predictive imaging each time we see. Also, when light from an object hits our retina, the brain links emotions to light's various colours first, and then it recognises the form. So, we might see green of a tree and feel calm, and then after that recognise that the object is a tree. Thus the emotional value and the visual impression are intrinsically linked and these together help us live in and react to our environment every single moment. Through Light Plays, I have taken the photons from every day objects and captured them in a way that removes them from fixed-form meaning. Do we still react emotively to those colours as if we knew the object from which they came? What kind of meaning can we ascribe to these images? Do we guess?

I am aiming at breaking new ground with the technique I employ to create Light Plays photographs. I am painting or drawing with light, just what the word photography means, using the camera’s position and movement as my paintbrush. I do not manipulate any of the images after they are taken. I am seeking images where the painting of light does not in any way evoke the original object, while also creating something textural, with depth, and that stimulates an emotional response. I cannot see the end product image before the photo is taken; serendipity is an integral element in the process and my feeling and connection with the objects help to create this photographic art. The works should become images of poetic reverie: the loss of the object, and hence the loss of the possibility of knowing the object, leaves the viewer in the chasm between seeing and knowing and there, in this other place, doors of the imagination open.

Exhibitions and Commissions record (selected)

LIGHT PLAYS: Esta Noche 07, commissioned by Oxford Brookes University as a leaving gift for the chancellor Jon Snow.
11th July 2008.

LIGHT PLAYS: Esta Noche 07, “Oxford Open”, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, UK.
12th January – 17th February 2008.

LIGHT PLAYS: Selected works, Sweet Art Gallery, Naples Florida, US.
January 18th – February 14th 2008.

LIGHT PLAYS: Removing Light from Fixed-form Meanings. Solo exhibition, O3 Gallery, Oxford, UK.
13 October – 11 November, 2007.

Two ladies on the Road, photograph in “On The Road” photographic exhibition
Center For Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.
10 Feb - 25 March 2006.

OTHER SPACES, camera obscura installation, exhibited with “Counter Photography: Japan’s Artists Today”South Hill Park Arts Centre, Bracknell, UK.
14 May - 26 June 2005.

ICONOCLASTIC VENERATION, visual perception interaction. “Children’s International Arts Festival”. South Hill Park Arts Centre, Bracknell, UK.
8 June - 14 June 2005.

WATERSHED, site-specific interactive light and sound installation/sculpture, The Old Dairy, Headington Hill Park, Oxford, UK.
24 Sept – 3 October 2004.

OTHER SPACES, installation. Part of the exhibition “Brookes Contemporary”.
Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, UK.
5 February - 8 February 2004

OTHER SPACES: Moving Image and Sound Installations. Solo exhibition. OVADA, Oxford, UK.
1 November - 22 November, 2003

SHADOW-CHI, Moving Image and Sound Installation, in “OX1: A Festival of Vibrations and Oscillations”, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK. October 25 - October 27 2001.

Commissions record
Commissioned by Arts Council England, Oxford City Council, and OVADA (Oxfordshire Visual Arts Development Agency for the works: Other Spaces, Reflections, Skein,and Fundus, and for the solo exhibition “Other Spaces: Moving Image and Sound Installations”, 1 November - 22 November, 2003.
Commissioned by Oxford City Council and OVADA for a seven-week artist-in-residency at The Old Dairy Oxford City Council, and for the solo exhibition Watershed, 14 August - 4 October, 2004.

Academic record
2005. Master’s Degree. Contemporary Art and Music. Distinction. Oxford Brookes University, U.K.
2002. BA (Hons). Fine Art. First Class. Oxford Brookes University, U.K.