Allan Wilkie is of Irish and Scottish descent and spent most of his youth in Ireland and in Derbyshire before studying Fine Art at Central/St. Martins College of Art in London. His work has been exhibited at the Mall Galleries in London, the Royal West of England Academy, the Holburne Museum in Bath and in commercial art galleries. He currently exhibits at the Doorway Gallery in Dublin and Gallery 1608 in Bushmills. Allan’s works can be found in several private collections.
Allan follows the path of figurative drawing and painting. Rather than imitating what is in front of him, he paints what he wants to see and what he wants others to see so that his paintings are addressed to the mind as well as the eye. He paints genre pictures based on the five senses and the four elements that dignify people doing ordinary things. Allan has taken portrait commissions and he also produces drawings and prints for pleasure. Props are significant and where he shows relevant antique objects still in use, it has less to do with nostalgia and more to do with mixing the past with the present. Allan said “when working with models, I experiment with poses and lighting to perfect the image and achieve the desired effect to convey a feeling. Where my work refers to well-known old and contemporary masters it borrows their capacity to add beauty to the everyday and to solve the problem of transforming our experiences into art. I aim to give people something to look at, to contemplate and to enjoy.”
