Alan Scally

I term my art style Exploratory Abstractionism. My artistic muses are my demons both internal and external. I never attended art school, I have never taken an art class after elementary school, but please don't call me an outsider artist. I shifted my focus to the visual arts in 2006 when I became serious about becoming an artist. Not having had formal training, I have learned by experimentation, happy accidents and dumb luck. I began working with oil pastels, then added watercolor and acrylic to the mix. I work a lot with found material I scavenge from the streets of the warehouse-industrial area I live in here in Portland. One turning point came when I was at the zendo I was attending at the time in about 2008. There was a reading about art in which it was written that the space between the trees was as important as the trees themselves. That's why there is all that blank space in Zen-influenced art. I immediately thought "but there are plants, birds, insects, sky, fences, houses...they are important." So my painting style moved from minimalism to filling the canvas, wood, stone, vinyl sheet, pane of glass with colours and shapes. The world both inner and outer is full of colour and magic and horror. I have had a lot of shows, both group and solo, about 30 since December, 2012. I have shown in a couple of galleries, as well as tattoo parlors, beauty salons, bars, brew pubs, currently a real estate office, coffee shops and I will be hanging a solo show in a cinema in October. The artists in the flashy, hip galleries came out of art school. I came off the streets. I was living in shelters and transitional housing. I am an ex-offender. I have experienced long term unemployment. I live with Bipolar DO, PTSD and ADHD. I scare them. I am not of their world. More importantly, they are not of my world.