Dean Allison

Dean Allison Biography

Resident artist, Penland North Carolina. Master of Art, Visual Arts in Glass, The Australian National University in Canberra 2010, B.S. in Studio Arts Illinois State University 2001. Selected teaching: The Glass Furnace in Istanbul Turkey, Bullseye Glass Co, Portland Oregon, The Pittsburgh Glass Center. Selected Exhibitions: SOFA Chicago, Scope Miami, The Smithsonian Portrait Gallery, and Tacoma Art Museum in 2017

Dean Allison Description

Dean Allison has been making figures and portraits from glass for over a decade. He begins with a life cast of his subject, usually a friend or family member. The final portrait, made in cast glass expresses the fragility and transparency of human experience through a medium that inherently captures those qualities. The artist notes, “I’m thinking about the inside/invisible aspect of a person and the outside/visible aspect that one carries in their physicality and can create or adorns for external display. Glass is the middle ground, the window to look through.”
Allison was a resident artist in Penland, North Carolina from 2015 to 2018. He has a Masters in Art, Visual Arts in Glass from Australian National University (2010) and a B. S. in Studio Arts from Illinois State University. (2001). He has taught at The Glass Furnace in Istanbul, Turkey, Bullseye Glass Co. in Portland, Oregon, and the Pittsburgh Glass Center in Pittsburgh, PA. He has exhibited at SOFA Chicago, Scope Miami at the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery, and the Tacoma Art Museum in Tacoma, WA.