MILES ALLEN - CONNECTIONS 2020 (view exhibition here)
About two years ago I dropped a pebble in a pool of water and filmed it in slow motion. I was struck by the impact the pebble had on the water and how it altered everything in its immediate surrounding. The water echoed the rippled circles to and from the edge of the pool, more subtle ripples appearing in the process; the sand bed was disturbed by the pebble, each grain displaced, and the pebble once wet, darkened, its shape distorted through the lens of water and submersion.

That moment deepened my understanding of how everything is connected in a multitude of ways. There is nothing we do that doesn't have an impact on people or nature. There is nothing we use, eat, or drink that has not resulted from the makings of many before it reaches our hands. We are mostly unaware of these impactful links yet, at other times, we act, speak, and do, so that we do have an impact. All links have the potential to be beneficial or detrimental in their impact.

Connections is a series of works about our country, landscapes and environment. The found objects in these works bring about a connection to places where I have lived and worked. These objects served their purpose and were discarded. They have now been reinstated in a different context, reality, form and status. Within their new existence they tell stories  of hope and despair, resilience and fragility, continuance and curtailment, and permanence and ephemerality.

In these times of COVID-19, connections are under scrutiny both for the detrimental repercussion of contagion and the beneficial unity amongst people that emerge in order to protect our communities.

BUSH TUCKER 2020
Collaborative work with Ikuntji Artists, Haasts Bluff, NT. Ikuntji Artists is an Aboriginal art centre at Haasts Bluff, 230kms north-west of Alice Springs. The tins were found around this community and others and are stocked in every community shop. Judging by the amount of tins on the shelves and found outside, they are a popular item. The artists were briefed to paint bush tucker on these tins: Anne Dixon, Roseranna Larry, Joseph Lane, Belinda Wheeler, Francis Marshall, Daphne Marks, Kelly Dixon, Ena Fly.

LINING UP TO BE EXTINCT 2020
The grey currawong, partridge pigeon, night parrot and malleefowl are rarely seen in this part of Australia. They are some of our disappearing species due to, amongst other reasons, loss of habitat.

REDLANDS 2 2020
The land called Redlands was originally Quandamooka land until it was taken in the 1820s. Some of it was converted to general farming and market gardens. Much of the land was sold for housing development after World War II and the 1970s and the rapid growth continues.

IT STARTED WITH A DOT 2 2020
I found most of these tin lids in central Australia, often at Indigenous communities and/or at abandoned camp sites. The single dots symbolise Aboriginal art which is often the only source of earnable income available in those communities that have art centres.

HOMAGE TO MORE LEAVES 2020
These mostly native leaves have been collected from three of my favourite places to which I have a strong connection: my home on the Sunshine Coast (left string), Bancroft Park in Kelvin Grove (middle string), and a waterhole on a friend's property close to my home (right string).

HOMAGE TO TINS 2020
Like so much of our packaging, these are all items we use once and throw away and they slowly disappear back into the land from which they came. Where would be without them?

THE MERRY-GO-ROUND OF THREATENED SPECIES 2020
Our endangered species and our connection to their survival is well documented. We know what the threats are to these species and what we need to do to protect them. Sometimes politics, greed and the power of big businesses get in the way of a healthy eco-systems.

DESERT PIZZA 2020
Made from items found in the Central Desert

WAITING 2020
All found objects have been used to make this parrot, waiting on its perch for what comes next

REDLANDS 1 2019
The land called Redlands was originally Quandamooka land until it was taken in the 1820s. Some of it was converted to general farming and market gardens. Much of the land was sold for housing development after World War II and the 1970s and the rapid growth continues. The blocks are connected to each other.

CIRCLES 2018
The definition of a chain is a flexible series of metal links or series of objects, people or events which are connected to one another. Metal chains can be used as support, restraint, transmission of mechanical power, measurement or worn as an ornament. A chain of people, connected to each other and harnessing their individual and collective power, can bring about enormous change.

RUBBISH CARS 2018
Robyn Williams in her PhD thesis Mapping Ngaanyatjarra Art-making Practices states the term ‘rubbish cars’ is used by Yarnangu people to refer to cars that need attention. Many of these cars have been bought cheaply with money earned from an art centre and were never intended for the harsh realities of desert driving (Williams 2017). They are often abandoned on the side of the road or in the yard on blocks waiting for repairs that may or may not happen. Inevitably most of these cars finish up at the rubbish tip. By this stage, many of the items that can be salvaged and re-used have been removed from the vehicle. Anthropologist Diana Young in her study ‘The life and death of cars: Private vehicles on the Pitjantjatjara Lands, South Australia’, states ‘The cars that Aboriginal people in the Western Desert buy are typically in the last stages of their viable life. Coupled with this is the fact that these vehicles operate over long distances and in harsh conditions. Some sedans, and four-wheel-drive vehicles as well, last only a few months before irretrievable breakdown occurs on the punishing dirt roadways. (2001, p. 38 in Williams 2017). Robyn Williams, 2018, Mapping Ngaanyatjarra Art-making Practices (Nintilu Kulira Palyaratjaku Ngayuku-Lampatju Ngurrawanalu), University of Technology, Sydney.

WHOSE LAND IS IT ANYWAY? (6 PANELS, 5 PANELS & 1 PANEL) 2012-2018
These posts are used to indicate the position of boundary markers. I’ve been making these works since 2012 and have wanted to relate them to the dispossession of Aboriginal land. I was doing some research on Aboriginal boundaries and borders and found that ‘in Queensland white poles [marked in red] were placed in front of properties to inform Aboriginal people and police that Aboriginals were not allowed to venture further. These poles were known as boundary posts’ (Tania Schafer, State Library of Queensland. The posts we now use to mark boundaries have their origins in controlling where Aboriginal people could and couldn’t go.

STEALING TIME 2015
I made this work after doing a residency at Hill End, NSW. Whenever I go to a new place I like to wander around, find my bearings, get familiar with the place and start to feel some connections. Part of that process is to discover what has been thrown away and can be repurposed. I found these bits of metal  at the tip and decided to present them in a geometric format, the opposite of the layout of a tip!

Courtesy of the Artist 2020

MILES ALLEN 2020
My current practice is consistent with my ongoing exploration into the use of a variety of found and discarded objects to create artworks with lines, rhythms and stories. I manipulate a variety of materials - wire and rusty metal objects, wooden boxes from Europe, rulers and other measuring devices, bamboo and found objects that appeal to me. I utilise the evidence left by past usage and handling to give these materials a new life and bring them into another realm, another public and a different exploration of concepts. 

Courtesy of the Artist 2020

MILES ALLEN 2016
My work is an ongoing exploration into recycling a range of materials to create geometrical and rhythmic artworks. In these works, I have used different types and thicknesses of plywood to bring a strong variety of lines. My intervention with this material involves manipulation by cutting then soaking the cuttings in various shades of inks. This transforms the wood into a visually rich base for arrangement into different geometrical compositions.

I have always worked with straight lines, squares and geometric shapes. They give me some comfort and balance in a world where little seems straightforward or easily understood and where we construct different meanings to suit our needs and history. These artworks are intended to bring a relief to complexity and a sense of respite and calm in the simplicity of the compositions.

The squares in the Weaving series of works bring forth another form of simplicity in their repetitive arrangement. Having a horizontal/vertical intertwined pattern is reminiscent of the weaving patterns of fabric and natural materials. My exploration has drawn me to experiment with subtle shades of similar tones and different depths and forms whilst keeping a consistency in the supporting square patterns.

Through these creative acts, the initial material originally destined for construction is absorbed and reappears in a novel form intended to awaken the curiosity of viewers. This simultaneously expands my capacity for inventive variation and my visual vocabulary to articulate the pleasure I take in seeing beauty in ordinary things, creating order, crossing cultures, joy and repurposing.

Courtesy of the Artist 2016