Allen Stamper was born on Oahu in 1947 and has spent most of his life between Hawaii, New York and Nova Scotia. The son of artist Willson Stamper and celebrated children's book illustrator and writer Martha Alexander Stamper was immersed in the arts early on. Formally, he studied drawing with Joe Fehrer in 1964 at the Honolulu Academy of Art followed by a brief apprenticeship with sculptor Eddie Schillacci in New York in 1965, Stamper's primary focus being sculpture until 1978. In 2001 he studied Renaissance painting technique with Snowden Hodges which prompted his shift to oil painting.

Stamper's paintings have since been featured in several juried shows including Artists of Hawaii at the Honolulu Academy of Art, the Schaefer Portrait Challenge at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center, a two-person show at the Koa Gallery, and several other two person and group shows.

"In Stamper's portraits, paint is applied with energetic accuracy so as to look both improvised and calculated, while the soul of each subject is illuminated with uncanny precision."

"In Stamper's works, you can see what he describes as "snapshots of little occurrences that mark me in some say". It's been said that the artist expresses not what his eyes see but only what he subjectively experiences. Stampers work grapples eloquently and confidently with his inner life, and it is in this dimension that the work speaks to our inner feelings."

David C. Farmer, Art Critic, Honolulu Advertiser

View art by this artist: Oil paintings