Bale Creek Allen’s My America returns to the Texas Panhandle in December 2019. It will open as part of the downtown Wine Walk on Friday the 13th at the Contemporary Art Museum Plainview (CAMP) with a free and open to the public reception for the artist from 6 to 10pm. The exhibition will run through the second week in February 2020 and can be enjoyed during regular CAMP hours from 12pm to 5pm every Thursday through Sunday.
This ambitious series, which is comprised of large-format photographs, installation, sculpture and video is an ongoing effort to find the soul of America and then show it to you. The growing and changing body of work will eventually travel to all 50 states collecting unifying elements from each state like dirt, tree bark, pieces of rubber tires, video captured from a GoPRO camera attached to Allen’s motorcycle and other banal objects that capture who we really are. Exhibiting the work first at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts in Lubbock in 2016, the show has since then traveled throughout the southwest to important spaces including Santa Fe’s Gerald Peters Projects, Houston’s Texas Gallery and The Old Jail Center in Albany.
Allen was born in 1968 to well-known parents (artists Terry Allen and Jo Harvey Allen) who famously hail from Lubbock Texas. When Bale was growing up they were part of the California’s artistic community around Fresno. It was during the dozens of childhood trips that his family made between Texas and California that Allen found his unique voice. Lines on the highway, run down hotels, weird little towns, especially those around Lubbock, all had a profound effect on him. It is those memories that inspired the My America project.
At present My America covers Allen’s travels across 34 states including Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California. Allen hopes to visit the remaining 16 states by the end of 2020.
“He strives for the works to inspire conversations about what America truly is based on actual observation and encounters, not preconceived ideas fueled by the media, stereotypes, or fearful visions created by politicians. “ Patrick Kelly from the exhibition catalog produced by CAMP.
