Artist Lecture: Jeffery Allison

Jeffery Allison is the Paul Mellon Collection Educator at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. He helps plan and coordinate events and curates shows for the museum. One show he curated Through Different Eyes: Faces of Poverty in Virginia, has traveled statewide and been published.

Allison at the age of sixteen started photographing for a local newspaper mainly focusing on music events but also on mine strikes and car wreaks. He went to VCU graduate school and after graduating when back to his undergraduate school where he began working with his former teachers to make the film Solitaire. He did not show much of his photography in the presentation, but instead mainly focused on his role at the Virginia Fine Arts Museum. From the photography of his that he did show, his black and white work spoke to me more because it was very emotional (almost romantic). His color and more recent work was very documentary and deadpan, but interesting in shape and color. His newer work (which I was unable to find online anywhere) is in a show at Mary Washington about museum workers who make art and how their job affects their art making. While he is extremely busy curating and educating, he says that on his trips he makes time to photograph because it keeps himself "sane."

He shared an interesting tid-bit about the VMFA. When it reopens it will be the 7th out of the top 10 museums in the United States. Little 'ole Richmond!

Photographs from Through Different Eyes: Faces of Poverty in Virginia