Création plastique.
Le travail de Noelle Allen s’inscrit dans cette filiation des artistes qui explorent l’invisible, Max Ernst en toile de fond de ces initiés, mais on peut, sans s’y tromper, ajouter Salvador Dali et même Jérôme Bosch par les milliers de détails qui composent chacune de ses œuvres. Tel un chercheur en biologie de l’infiniment petit Noelle Allen descend au tréfonds de la matière pour la retravailler avec les moyens traditionnels de l’aquarelle et du crayon. Elle prend beaucoup de photos avant ce travail. Comme un détective de la police scientifique elle s’entoure de «preuves» de l’existant avant de le transfigurer. Il s’agit d’un travail patient, long et vertueux, parce que sans artifices aucune. Par ce cheminement elle nous amène voyager dans notre imaginaire, celui de chacun, individuel et unique. Nous invitant à nous projeter et y projeter nos propres fantasmes infinis. Allez jeter un coup d’œil sur son site, c’est sobre et très riche d’expérience visuelle.
Salvador Dali
Détail de l’œuvre juste au-dessus
Noelle Allen
Noelle Allen
Selected Exhibitions
2007 New Work by Noelle Allen, Museum of Contemporary Art, UBS 12 X 12, Chicago, IL* Not Fade Away, curated by John Burnetti, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL
2006 Feast and Courtship, Wendy Cooper Gallery, Chicago, IL*
2005 A Sense of Place curated by Heather Pesanti, Lobby Gallery, Chicago, IL | Organic Matter curated by John Brunetti, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL | Midwest Contemporary Biennial curated by | Faculties, Domincan University, River Forest, IL
2004 Evanston Biennial juried by Dominic Melon and Monique Meloche, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL | Juror’s Award, 17th Annual Evanston + Vicinity Biennial, juried by Dominic Melon and Monique Meloche | Mike Kelley Selects juried by Mike Kelley, Detroit Artists Market, Detroit, MI
2004 Graduate Exhibition and Time Art Event 847 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, IL
Integrity of the Minimal Honorable Mention, curated by Ruth Synderman Art on the Line
2003 Suspension curated by Skylar Smith 1926 Gallery, Chicago, IL
2002 Noelle Allen and Ariel Frieberg, Thesis Exhibit, Northampton Center for the Arts, Northampton, MA | Exit Art Smith College Department of Art, Northampton, MA
Accipiters and Accipiter Studies
The Accipiter, a bird of prey, as well as fossil studies and scientific renderings of cellular mitosis, formed the basis for the fragmented forms and ruptured avian figures that appear in these new drawings. Beyond these particular sources, however, the works demonstrate a sustained interest in corporeal transformation: the ability of physical bodies to break, tear, decay, heal and regenerate. These modes of repetition and mutation are mirrored in the time-intensive and laborious processes by which the drawings were created.
For this series of work, I introduced watercolor to graphite drawings on Mylar. In addition to complementing an otherwise monochromatic palette with subtle blues and greens, the watercolor further abstracts the figures from true representation with broad washes of color and textured gradations of pigment and graphite. When viewed closely, the drawings can be explored as intricately detailed compositions, or a “microscopic topography” of precise markings. However, on a macro level, there exists an aesthetic of fantasy, in which there is a quick transition from recognizable forms to abstracted areas of line and movement. In this shift and in the flux of states, there is an investigation of the process of decay and the pleasure and pain of transformation. This work is a continuation of my interest in the conflicts within the fragile, mutable and fugitive state of our interior landscape.