Paris 2019 Charity Art Exhibition

Marcus Mcallister
Marcus McAllister is a French-American full-time professional artist living in Paris for over two decades.
Originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, he received his degree in Fine Art from Louisiana State University
in 1991 and has a prolific output, incorporating mixed media sketchbooks and acrylic paintings.
The artist’s practice is sketchbook-centered. For more than thirty years, he has carried a sketchbook
with him wherever he goes, using it as a tool for pulling order from chaos. The sketchbook (currently number 117)
organizes random information, digests experiences and memories, ideas and imaginings. The process
secretes meaning. Marcus McAllister’s acrylic paintings are developments and expansions of the sketchbookgenerated
ideas. His paintings present dreamlike depictions of figures, characters, animals and cities.
Sometimes there are recognizable forms and places, painted from life or memory, and sometimes the depictions
are more symbolic and abstract. The artist has a characteristic style that combines fine art,
illustration and mysticism - a quality that transcends time and setting.
“I use the individual pages as a template for paintings on canvas. My idea is not to copy the preexisting drawing,
but to use it as a map for exploring formal possibilities of scale and matter. An interesting side effect comes
from the presence of the current sketchbook during this exploration on canvas. As I search for painting solutions,
I naturally take up my sketchbook to think through possibilities on pages that in turn give rise to other paintings.
Paintings become the sketches for sketchbook pages.”
www.marcusmcallister.com