Thomas Allen (2021) Drawing by Aurèle De Fouay

I was born in 1969 in Sarthe. I lived in Burkina Faso and fifteen years in Mexico. I am periodically an engineer, trainer, consultant, writer... and artist.

The word history is the common point of my ions: drawing the story of a face, reading or writing stories, learning the great History of men or the small ones of our daily lives, listening to others tell me theirs, iring the images of people's history. Whether through books, films, theater, painting or travel, what touches me is history. I like to understand how our lives are first and foremost an infinite interweaving of stories.

And there is a profound injustice in not seeing people's particular stories, because they are exciting and beautiful; and even better: because they enrich us, they elevate us, they make us deeper, more subtle, more serene women and men. A portrait is not just a face: life writes a story on flesh, as a writer does on paper. A portrait must therefore reflect a human story, its struggles and its joys and that it is associated with a text: the lines of the words dialogue with those of the drawing, complete them.

If we don't do that, we put cold portraits on our walls, with beautiful women without identity, elegant faces without history, clever lighting without emotion. Superficial images on which our gaze slides. Artificial images that dry up our humanity.

I am not looking for aesthetically perfect images, I am looking for real faces of men and women, children, old people who carry their story in their eyes, their wrinkles, their smiles and their tears.

My work then consists of interpreting the photo to bring drawn elements that explain the person: accentuated shadows, incomplete parts, different colors that will highlight some personality traits.

I want us to guess in the features and the shape of the face, the madness of the killer, the suffering of the sick person, the desire of the lover, the solitude of the old man, the tenderness of the mother, the innocence of the child, the energy of the worker, the hope of the migrant, the violence of the soldier, the despair of the victim.

It is difficult to do, I do not always succeed. I eliminate a lot of drawings. I only keep the one that is true and that, associated with a story, will allow the viewer to get closer to this face, this person, their story and especially the values ​​and emotions that have crossed them. To dialogue with another look.

My creations reflect three important aspects of my life: first my attachment to the human figure and the story it represents; then my anxiety about death and old age, finally my inner conflict between a desire for control (with precise gestures to the pointillism) and an instinct for freedom that pushes me to improvisation.

• Nationality:
• Date of birth : 1969
• Artistic domains: Works by professional artists,
• Groups: Contemporary French Artists