| Artist's Statement |
Harry Ally has been recognized over the past several years as possibly the finest painter in the Southern United States. Harry Paul Ally's large canvases support deep layers of media ranging from oil to more experimental materials including sand, tar, and concrete. He sees his work as a documentation of existence - the human race and his own. Ally has stated: "Painting is the primal impulse to mark. It's a visual record of the mind, the body, and the human spirit." While he uses rough application, there is a soft, ethereal feel to his creations. "The work is sensual because of the colors and the manner in which the paint is applied."
Despite the almost total abstraction of his figures and atmospheres, he has managed to create an incredible amount of depth. The mastery of light in his paintings is pleasantly surprising; he provides rich reflection and luminescence without superfluous detail. His monochromatic backgrounds have the ability to stretch for miles.
Depending on which colors he uses, each figure and atmosphere take on an ambivalent aura; a maroon man engulfed by a vermillion sky could be both passionate and hellish. Ally has a distinctly light-hearted series of paintings as well. He implements the same techniques, but in loving pastels, creating innocent images like a ballet tutu or a gentleman with flowers.
There is a markedly primitive feel to Harry Paul Ally's work. Even with his raw figures, each canvas seems like a realistic moment in nature. Ally believes in "truth revealed through abstraction, honesty revealed through distortion and exaggeration."
Ally lives in Ohio and Georgia and is a popular professor at Valdosta State University. |
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