Ricky Allman: Recalling Future Self-portraits (Selfies) as Still-life @ Cultural Alliance Art Center

October 4, 2013 Exhibition:  Ricky Allman: Recalling Future Self-portraits (Selfies) as Still-life  and City Redux Part 2 aka SLC2573 Exhibition dates: October 18 – November 9, 2013  Exhibition opening reception: Friday, October 18, 6pm-9pm.  CUAC hours: w-f 12-7pm, sat 12-4pm. Media Contact: Dana Hernandez 385-215-6768 art@cuartcenter.org While the reflection of an artists subconscious is not generally expected to be analogous to any particular place of normalcy, what is reflected from the mind of Ricky Allman takes us to a place that very few have even dreamt of. His apocalyptic scenes are cold and desolate and surrealistic. They combine elements of nature with man and machine made structures that play on the balance of our use of resources or lack thereof.  Despite his fear filled background, the work manages to hang on to an optimistic tone that leaks into the scenes in a variety of interesting ways. This allows the work to speak to a broad audience as the overriding concept is able to transcend any restricting specifics and communicate a hopeful optimism in a dark desolate place we all can relate with. —Ronnie Wrest/The Citrus Report CUAC is presenting a solo exhibition of the paintings of Ricky Allman.  Having been raised Mormon, Allman creates large-scale paintings that explore ominous, apocalyptic landscapes with geometric architecture and forms. The austere landscapes are inspired by the mountains of the Wasatch Front and the abstract bursts of color come from a commitment to modernist painting. Allman works out his preoccupation with existence and especially apocalypse in these paintings that struggle to exist in a space between abstraction and representational landscape and narrative painting. Allman was raised in Provo, Utah. He received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. He currently resides in Kansas City, MO. Allman has presented solo exhibitions at Marine Contemporary in Los Angeles, CA, David B. Smith Gallery in Denver, CO, Gallery B15 in Copenhagen, Denmark, Daniela Da Prato Gallery in Paris, France, Swarm Gallery in Oakland, CA, and Bryon Cohen Gallery in Kansas City, MO. This will be Allman’s first solo exhibition in Utah. In conjunction with the Western States Printmaking Conference hosted at the University of Utah the same weekend, CUAC is pleased to present an exhibition of printmaking that uses printmaking as a method to pursue conceptual concerns instead of as an end in itself. Ricky Allman of Kansas City, MO will present a silkscreen print that he will then draw and paint on after it is installed in CUAC’s gallery space. His painting will extend onto the walls of the gallery and engage with the architecture of the space. Kathryn Bradshaw of Ogden recently returned to Utah from Portland, OR where she finished an MFA in sculpture. She will exhibit an artist’s book that is the same surface area as the area of the skin on her body, thereby making a self-portrait. The contents of the book are images of her moles and freckles. Emi Brady of Denver, CO will make a site-specific installation of her prints of animals that will be sculpture-like in the way it engages with space. Chris Coy, of Las Vegas, NV will exhibit a stack of silkscreened pizza boxes that exist as sculpture as well as props in a film and ongoing performance project of his where he explores his coming-of-age as an adult male living in Utah. Katrin Koenig of Liepsig, Germany will exhibit a large-scale print made with a steamroller. Colin Nesbit of Murray, KY will exhibit large scale embossed white on white architectural drawings. Lindsey Winkel of Mount Pleasant, UT will exhibit a large cyanotype she created to document her travel through the landscape by car.