Meet Allen!

Here is a brief Bio on Artist Allen Lund. He will be joining us for Gallery Stroll this evening! Stop by to meet this extremely talented artist for the inside scoop on his latest works of art!

Allen Lund

Allen was born in 1968. Growing up in the foothills of Utah’s Wasatch Mountains, Lund developed an early sensitivity to the incredible bounty and variety in the natural beauty of his home state. It is a vast and varied source for the subjects he now interprets skillfully into his work. Richly textured and exquisitely toned, his paintings have the authority and maturity that come from an extensive lifelong involvement with art. From the time he could hold a crayon until the age of 14, Lund learned and practiced painting and design under the tutelage of his mother and father, both professional artists.

However, Allen did not pursue painting seriously until the age of 25. Within a year, he had sold his first painting, and within three years he was painting full time, scarcely able to keep up with the sudden demand for his work. Lund selects subjects from his own photographs and uses them as points of embarkation into compositions that are 90 percent imaginative. His finished paintings are about the emotional resonance of a place and its atmosphere rather than representative any specific site.

          Atmospherics are important to Lund, whose favorite seasons are autumn, winter, and spring. His paintings give the spectator distinct sensory impressions beyond the purely visual. Viewers can feel humidity, stillness, movement of air, and ambient temperature, all cued visually but involving each of the senses and registering emotionally as a recollection of serene communion with nature. His works provoke a sense of fleeting perceptions like the scent of pine in the air or the musical murmur of water cascading in a secluded mountain brook.

Lund insists on first-rate craftsmanship in every step of making a painting. He uses only the finest stretched linen and the highest-quality archival grounds and pigments. He begins each painting session with a fresh palette and a fresh attitude.

Of his penchant to paint Utah scenes, Lund has said, “Utah has the most beautiful and diverse landscape I’ve ever seen. Living here, I’m always thoroughly inspired.”

Why We Fall In Love: The Power of Art and Emotion

    

     Art has the power to evoke feelings of hope, sadness, happiness, distress, etc.  It can also make us feel relieved, concerned, relaxed, blissful, or contemplative. But what is it that attracts us to the art engages all of these powerful emotions?

    Viewers are often attracted to an image that they find familiar because it evokes a feeling of sentimental recollection. People are attracted to nostalgic items for various reasons. It may remind them of a time full of carefree happiness or childhood memories. Nostalgia is often linked to certain smells, textures, sounds, and other sensory memories a person stores in the back of their mind. For example, an image of bare aspen trees freshly coated with snow may remind the viewer of the scent and cold bite in the air that comes with each year’s first snowfall. So even in the dead of summer you can glance as the piece and get chills as you remember the stillness of the first snow covered morning each year. It is, in a sense, a mental escape for a brief moment that allows us to let go of the present.  It can be an image of a creek that takes the viewer back to the first time they went fishing with their father. The tug on the pole the first time they reeled in a fish. Unlike a photograph of your first fishing trip, a painting leaves room for imagination and allows your mind to wonder. It gives the viewer time to relive the moment as they choose to remember it not necessarily how it really was.

    In contrast to nostalgic attraction, viewers are also attracted to images that provoke their imagination or bring pervious beliefs into question. Images that make the viewer want to know more. An abstract image that is open for interpretation allows the mind to wonder in any direction. Though the artist manipulates the mind with color and shape the rest is left to for you to figure out. Whether it is color or shape that initially attracts a viewer, it is a certain feeling they get that keeps them involved. Technical skills and complex imagery that is unfamiliar challenges the mind and imagination. An image can truly captivate you. The overwhelming ability of an image to open your mind to a new and unseen world, or capture your oldest memory is one of the most beautiful aspects of art.

     The reasons that you are attracted to one form of art over another can have to do with your state of mind. Your mood and/or occurrences in your life will determine the initial attractions you feel. The way you associate with a piece of art has to do with both personal interpretation and social perceptions. For instance you may be drawn to a Picasso piece not because of its esthetic beauty but rather its historical relevance. Familiarity with an artists’ name often creates a sense of assurance. Knowing that others know and like an artist can be enough to attract some viewers. Usually the initial interest is caused by attraction to an esthetic beauty, however, in some circumstances the viewer begins to discover the esthetic qualities after seeing a familiar signature.

    As humans we are very visual creatures. Every image will have an individual effect on a person’s emotions.  The way you perceive an image will be determined by the way you were brought up, your current lifestyle, the way you choose to see the world, and the biases that society puts in place. There is a complex combination of emotions and attractions that will cause you to fall in love with a work of art. Imagery is a very powerful thing that we simply can’t overlook.