Allan Thomas is a Contemporary Realist who focuses on urban landscapes. His work documents the relationship between urban environments. Allan chooses to portray ordinary, contemporary places that might not draw much attention as they are the everyday streets and buildings that surround us, often over looked and taken for granted. He invites the viewer to find beauty in the mundane with an acute attention detail. Allan focuses on dynamic compositions, integrating colour and texture into the environment depicting strong images through the interaction of light and shadows creating a distinct representation that evokes feeling and is pleasing to the eye. Allan’s photo realistic paintings are done in oil paint on birch panel. His scratchboard work is created using an x-acto knife on black clayboard.
“I work with photo references that are all taken by me that I capture while traveling. But as photos often distort images, I redraw everything’ fixing perspectives, adding or deleting things to help with the overall composition. While working, I try to respect the areas I paint by not changing much of the visual representation. I’m interested in the way that urban architecture can take on the personality of its surroundings, the same way a pair of shoes can take on the characteristics of its owner. For me, an old building, street or alleyway has a story to tell.”
“When I am travelling and in a new environment, it heightens my awareness which helps me choose the places I take pictures that will be used as reference for my work. I am influenced by images that aren’t city specific and stay away from picture postcard images. Instead, I choose places that people anywhere might walk by everyday without paying much attention to. I’m influenced by older buildings and neighborhoods because they have the character and history you get from years of living. I love the interaction you get from years of living. I love the interaction you get from things like fire escapes, old signage, flaking brick and layers of old graffiti that is ever changing”
Allan Thomas is an artist residing in Edmonton, Canada. Allan does photo realistic urban landscapes that he has been showing in galleries in Canada for many years. Allan is also an accomplished mural painter who has done work internationally and in Canada for over 25 years.
See some of Allan’s mural work at: http://www.flyingcolorsmurals.com