Ian McAllister

It might seem incongruous that Ian McAllister's realism has developed alongside an enduring interest in Surrealism, but Surrealism is not antagonistic to realism, it is not about the unreal. If science questions the distinction between seeing and imagining, we can speculate that imagination might be as fully exercised in painting realistic pictures from life as in painting "imaginary" subjects. ‘Surrealism, without the special effect’ is how Ian describes his own work. A one-time fan of Dali, he has a continuing admiration for Magritte whose askance view of the prosaic suits his own psychological makeup.

Representational in form, McAllister’s work is yet ambiguous and elusive. Orderly and formal, the objects in his still life compositions play one against the other; they are seen as individual items whilst also units of a whole.

Ian McAllister was born in Newtonards in 1966, a graduate in Fine Art at the University of Ulster. He regularly exhibits at the Eakin Gallery, Belfast and with Jorgensen Fine Art, Dublin. Works have been sold to the University of Ulster art collection, the Government art collection and to private collections in Ireland the U.K., the U.S.A. and Indonesia.

Ian’s most recent solo exhbition at Jorgensen Fine Art was in October 2004.