John McAllister paints richly imagined interior and exterior landscapes in electric, near-psychedelic tonalities. Violet mountains slope gently downward, meeting orange-chartreuse fields that burst with impressionistic punctuations in crimson, aqua, and goldenrod. Against nearly fluorescent pink skies, hills rendered in vivid magenta reflect blue in glowing orange ponds. Interiors read just as richly: flora burst into view, vased and blooming in the foreground, with equally riveting mise en abymes visible just beyond.
McAllister’s images of landscapes are meditations upon nature rather than renditions of nature. They exemplify the essence of memory and subconscious thought as it relates to flora, color, and light. At the foundation of these works are a monochrome field, which McAllister employs to establish the sensibility and development of each image that emerges upon those surfaces.
When McAllister arrived in New York in the new millennium, he worked as a night guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His prolonged, isolated interaction with the masterworks of art history challenged his visual sensibility and initiated a thought process that absorbed the visual language of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Fauvist painters that is now embedded in his image-making process.
John McAllister was born in 1973 in Slidell, Louisiana. He lives and works in Northampton, Massachusetts.
John McAllister has been exhibited at galleries and museums worldwide, among them Biennale des Art, Nice FR | Le Consortium, Dijon, FR | Almine Rech Gallery, Brussels, BE / Paris, FR | Massimo de Carlo Pièce Unique, Paris, FR | Hagiwara Projects, Tokyo, JP | Acquavella Gallery, New York, US | Museum MAMCO, Geneva, CH | Brattleboro Museum of Art, Vermont, US | James Fuentes Gallery, New York, US | Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago US | David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, US | Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles, US | Rubell Family Collection, Miami, US.
His works are part of the following collections: HNA Group Inc. Collection, Hong Kong, HK | Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, US | Collection of Martin Eisenberg, New York, US | UBS Art Collection, New York, US | The Rubell Family Collection, Miami, US | Collection of Joseph Mimran, Toronto, CA | Collection of César and Mimi Reyes, San Juan, PR | MAK Family Collection, Munich.
