Scott Allen Paintings

Originally from north-central Washington State, Scott Allen has practiced both art and architecture for over two decades. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Design from the University of Washington in 1980 and his Masters of Architecture from the Graduate School of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania in 1982. Scott began exhibiting his art in 1997 and has created a body of paintings in both pastel and oil. Scott, previously a principal with the Seattle-based architectural firm Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen, founded Scott Allen Architecture in January 2009. He had once mentioned that “Growing up in eastern Washington gave me a deeply-branded visual memory that continues to be a strong source of imagery for my work. There is both clarity and mystery in that geography, with its seemingly endless spaces, sparse vegetation and often abrupt transitions from one geologic element to another. Light fills and illuminates these spaces as it plays off the land in endless variation. Peoples’ marks on these landscapes are especially obvious. Roads, buildings, and fields form strong counterpoints to the natural landscape. The eye is drawn to these kinds of elements, whether it is the verticality of grain elevators set against a flat field, a straight road or fence running through the land’s undulations, or an abandoned building. These marks can also suggest a history or narrative, and allow for individual interpretation in the mind of the viewer. As experiences, these landscapes can evoke feelings of loneliness and apprehension, as well as peaceful feelings of solitude and freedom, and it is within those emotions, and in their inherent contradictions, that the work is set.”