Allen Craig Bishop

This issue features the work of Allen Craig Bishop, a painter, printmaker, and art instructor who completed his studies at the University of Denver School of Art and now lives with his wife Alene and their three children in Granite, Utah. He is currently pursuing his career with a Visual Arts Fellowship awarded by the Utah Arts Council. Bishop comments: “In drawing, printmaking, and painting, I use formats and sizes ranging from 2″x2” lithographs to an 8’x240′ mural. I am inter￾ested in the interactions of geometry, shape, and color, which offer intriguing possibilities for investigating varied but universal structures. Virtually all visual phenomena have an elemental relationship to geometry, shape, and color. “Primarily non-objective, my work has taken inspiration from such varied sources as chess, astronomy, creation, and scripture. Recently, however, Fve introduced elements of time, change, and choice by using shaped canvases in rearrangeable, multi-part configurations. This allows the viewer to more fully participate in the process of visual communication, and the “universal struc￾tures” of shape and color function on a more elastic and democratic level. “To name my work, I rearrange syllables and invent words much as I create and organize visual forms. My titles usually have no direct, literal mean￾ing; I only occasionally intend similarity to real words. “It would be hard to imagine life without discovery and creation. I hope someday to become as Bezaleel, ‘filled . . . with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge and in all manner of workmanship’ (Ex. 31:3). If my work helps to ‘please the eye, . . . gladden the heart . . . and to enliven the soul’ (D&C 59: 18-19), then I have participated in God’s plan.”