AZ was raised on the island of Guam from 1952 to 1963. In 1966 his family moved to the Panama Canal Zone where he began painting and exhibiting before graduating from high school. His initial influences were Chinese and Pre Colombian art, as well as his many explorations in Central American jungles. His original dream was to become either an archeologist or an architect.
He earned his AA in Fine Arts in Long Beach, CA before joining the US Navy in 1976 as an Illustrator Draftsman for a colorful ten years. While serving in Naval Intelligence in the Philippines he was selected as the Navy's Shore Sailor of the Year. This brought him to the attention of the Navy's famed flight demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels, where he served for two tours- (4 years). His aviation paintings were exhibited globally. One remains in the Pentagon. In 1983, he was almost selected for a flight on the Space Shuttle, but lost to a needed inner ear surgery. This caused him to leave the Navy very discouraged. If he had made that flight, it would have been aboard the Challenger, which exploded. That was the single most formative moment in his life. He then decided to go after his BFA at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. His junior year was at Parsons in Paris, France where his art work and methodology underwent a profound transformation through the influence of Buckminster Fuller's book, Ideas and Integrities and George Steiner's masterwork, Language and Silence. He also won a series of traveling scholarships across Europe. The last was to culminate a year of studies in Byzantine art with ten days in Istanbul under the respected Byzantine scholar Charlotte Lacauze, who taught at the American College in Paris.
After his BFA graduation with national honors in 1990, he moved to MICA in Baltimore for his MFA. In that first semester he was hired to be the assistant to Salvatore Scarpitta, the Arte Povera sculptor with the Leo Castelli Gallery. Their relationship lasted ten years in which Sal took him to Italy five times, the last to install Sal's seventh solo at the Venice Bienalle. This opened the door to Allen's work being exhibited in Italy as well as being selected into the Pavilion of Contemporary Art in Milan, before it was leveled by a terrorist bomb. He has also exhibited in the former Gomez Gallery in Baltimore and the Ace Gallery in New York, as well as multiple locations in France. Group shows in Egypt and India included his work. He has traveled to, or lived in 37 nations thus far.
Allen taught sculpture and drawing at the Maryland Institute College of Art for twenty years before retiring from teaching. During that time he also taught at Towson University and Anne Arundel Community College and lectured in other Maryland colleges. Seven times he built large interactive walk-in stallions for Baltimore's annual Artscape as well as a series of six full scale ships around living trees.The last was in Seoul, Korea. A catalogue is available. Currently he teaches art privately and is an ordained minister. He has also mentored individuals for the past 32 years and has served six years in Baltimore's downtown jail system as well as in a men's half-way house.
Twice he’s been awarded the Pollock-Krasner Fellowship, along with four MD State grants, among other awards. In 2003-04 he was selected as a Senior Fulbright Scholar to Sung Kyun Kwan University in Seoul, Korea for one year and initiated MICA's exchange program. During that time he traveled to Japan to research Korea's historic impact on the early development of Japanese aesthetics. He was also invited to lecture at China's Central Academy in Beijing, as well as multiple locations in Korea.
Residencies included Succat Hallel in Jerusalem in 2019, TAC at the Tannery in Santa Cruz, CA- 2017, Ireland in 2015 and in 2014 at the Tyrone Guthrie Center. Others include Chateau Rochefort-en-Terre in Brittany, France, the Marie Walsh Sharpe Space Program in NYC, Sculpture Space and the Vermont Studio Program.
