Posted Friday, May 11, 2001 by dominique:

Where to place Ralph Allen's works? Numerous currents in Haitian painting of today run from nearly perfect representation of photo-realism to the informal abstract and "tachism". From instinctive naive to conceptual art. But, more then ever, Haitian painting defies classification, traditional or not, as it doesn't account for specifity of talent. Haitian art has always been dominated by strong personalities, who even though tied to a group or a tendency, have worked on the edge, sometimes even against the current.

Some have dared to call Ralph Allen an hyperrealist. At first glance, perhaps. The particularly accurate proportions of his characters, The careful rendering of forms, the accuracy and precision of details and the importance given to an object as such, all lend themselves directly to this interpretaion.

Let us avoid fast judgements, however. Because with a little more effort at in depth study of his work, and willingness to address the problem without prejudice, one might be surprised to find elements which place Ralph Allen quite far from hyperrealism. His preocupations are different, and it is very apparent that the imagined is distinctly superior to the visual. Moreover, his sensitivity is too strong to allow him to see the world with the eye of a disinterested witness. In its silence, his work is like a denunciation.

First and foremost, let it be said that Ralph Allen is an excellent technician, having a very good preparation, and having frequented the artistic "milieu" in the United States and Martinique-Guadeloupe as well as in Haiti. His work makes use of his studies. Nevertheless, his acquired thecniques are never used blindly. On the contrary, every brush stroke is the result of lengthy reflection; none is left to haphazard.

His intent is not at all to reproduce a world identical to ours through the magic of total technical mastery, but rather, to re-think this world, to express it not visually identical to itself, but with a complecity which often escapes the direct view. It is not for simple esthetic pleasure that Ralph Allen has used transparents, but to render simultaneity of actions, situations or emotions, or to apprehend movement, flow of things, the quickening of an individual's soul.

It is especially in the area of color that Ralph Allen seperates himself from hyperrealism. More than a reconstitution of local color, he thinks of the influence of colors and their relationships to each other, with an eye to establishing rythm. Worked in wide flat-washes, the color vibrates, and much more than a clear and precise drawing, it is the color that gives consistency to the forms.

Ralph Allen especially concerned himself with painting the realm of peasant and life in the poor areas of Port-au-Prince and provincial towns. He didn't work from nature, planting an easel in the middle of a market or street. He look, and retained what he saw. His canvas is a reproduction not of the apparent, but of the essential, wich permits him to give free rein to his imagination and to the bursts of his heart.

His predilection is for market scenes. In addition of color, we find the earthiness of the marketplace, the climate of false joy, comings and goings in an acrid an often corrupt aroma that surrounds the never-ending haggling of the setting. The impression of congestion that emerges from certain works is quite intentional. It expresses perfectly an atmosphere where wares often even spread on the ground block one's ability to move about freely.

Acclaimed in Martinique and Guadeloupe, today Ralph Allen is one of the finest painters of his generation. He has painted much, but he promises yet more. For his seriousness, his ardor for the work, and his openness with those younger, have made him a very respected painter, and a professor without equal.

~Michel Philippe Lerebours