Allen Jones is a visual artist who lives and works in Denver, Colorado. He was born and raised in the rugged little mountain town of Kremmling, Colorado, and attended the University of Wyoming where he graduated with a Bachelors of Art, with triple concentrations in graphic design, ceramics, and illustration, as well as a minor in art education. His artistic career includes carving tree stumps into bears with chainsaws, production manager for event companies, creating enormous sculptures, sets, and props for amusement parks, haunted houses and theatre companies, teaching painting and ceramics, and interior showfloor design.


Artist Statement

If I were to describe myself as an artist, I would like to think I am industrious, larger than life, and fun loving. All I want my art to do is leave people in awe and wonder. This desire lead me to the discovery that I am as much a teacher and performer as I am an artist. I get nearly as much enjoyment observing other artists and being observed making art, as I do creating the artwork!

For me, art is navigating the journey between what I have imagined (that perfect rotating impossibility in the spotlight of my mind) and the ability of my eyes to observe the world and my hands to manipulate whatever medium I happen to be engrossed in at the time. I love working large scale, although work as large as I like to do can be hard to find, so smaller is fine too. I love working where surprises are allowed, encouraged, and integrated into the process. Contrarily, I also love being able to focus on a piece, tightening the ever increasing intricacy of its details. When I finally reach that lovely balance between immediacy, intuition, and spontaneity, versus craftsmanship, intricacy, and madding detail, that is when I create my best work.

As I said, I enjoy creating things people want to look at, and find it fascinating exploring what appeals to them.  My work usually includes human and animal imagery, because we all relate to those things immediately, and because I enjoy the challenge of capturing a likeness. It is also intruiging to explore the things which are appealing even when it would seem like the opposite should be so.

I could continue to wax philosophical about my work and the ideas that drive it (part of me wants to) but truthfully I usually have to consider myself primarily a commercial artist, and as such, much of my content comes from clients' ideas and needs. Currently my professional creative outlets include visual merchandizing/showfloor decorating, and also teaching tipsy amateurs not to be afraid of paint and canvas, as well as the occasional commission. I do thoroughly enjoy my occupations, but while these outlets have their moments, they don't often provide the grand rush from creation that truly feeds my soul. Luckily I can experience some of that feeling in quick and simple little drawings and paintings, so I keep filling my sketchbooks, and moving with painful slowness towards the goal of having my own shop, where I can once again create the large-scale sculpture and props that I relished, and that leave people awestruck.

Now I just want to make art, and find fulfillment, catharsis, and solace in the act of creation.