Double vision: collaborative and individual creation at Allen Miller Arts

Robert Allen and Kevin Miller, owners of the new Allen Miller Arts gallery at 117 E. Chestnut St., often paint together.

Sometimes, one will finish the work of the other and sometimes they work simultaneously, either talking it through before they put the paint on the canvas, or just letting it happen.

Neither feels a sense of possession about the work.

"I don't have that artist mentality that says a painting is mine," says Allen. "I let it do what it wants to do."

"We feed off each other's energy," adds Miller. "We each have our own strengths and we really respect each other's kingdoms."

Their collaborations work quite well together, a confluence of both their talents.

Visitors to the new gallery can also see their individual work. Each has his own strength as an artist and his own style.

Miller's work is often colorful, cheerful and delightfully elemental. His influences include the Provence style of Cezanne as well as the mysterious hyperrealism of Rousseau.

He also explores graphic cubism, a reflection of when he ran a stained-glass company.

His work always has something going on within it.

"I want to convey the 'other' that you can't see," he explains. "And I am interested in getting humor in the work, make people think and chuckle."

Paintings of groups of animals, including the numerous birds and dogs that live with Allen and Miller in the country home they built in York County, are worth checking out. Subtle humor and mysterious groupings make the work especially intriguing.

And Miller is a master of color. His work often feels light and charming, his colors soothing.

His background includes a degree in art from Manchester College as well as study at Ecole des Beaux-Arts, in Aix-en-Provence, France.

"We have traveled a lot and I like to put the different cultural references together," says Miller.

Allen started his artistic life as a carpenter. When he was 12, he built a cabin in his backyard and lived there.

He almost went to school for architecture, winning a full scholarship to Syracuse University, but didn't like how much time he'd be in school and not creating.

He joined the Marines instead and ended up spending eight years in the service, living for a time in both the Philippines and Japan.

He and Miller met 15 years ago in the artist's colony of New Hope.

They both enjoyed traveling. It was in Paris that Allen began seeing himself as an artist.

"I realized I was good at all different forms of art, I enjoyed doing it all," he says. "That trip to Paris changed my opinion of what I was."

So Allen began painting more and loved it.

"I am a self-taught artist," he explains. "In watching Kevin paint, I realized I have no restrictions, I don't have to do anything."

He brought what he knew of woodworking to painting.

"I study the movement in paint. I know how wood works; now I am trying to do the same in paint," he says. "I find paint much more freeing."

His work is usually abstract, a whirling dervish of color and thickly-applied paint that he encourages people to touch.

"I want you to feel the paint, not just look at it," he says.

Indeed, Allen sometimes gets so lost in his work he has little memory of creating it.

And he is certainly messy. Miller jokes that paints gets splattered everywhere.

In fact, there is a sofa, a set of chairs and a table in the gallery that are layered with Allen's paint, creating a cleverly cheerful feel to the furniture.

And his inlaid woodwork, in tables and other pieces, is stunning.

Both Miller and Allen hope that other artists will join them in the gallery.

And not just visual artists.

"We'd like to open the gallery up to anything anyone wants to display," Allen says. "To poetry, to dance, to crafts. To whatever they want to share."

"We both believe that everyone is creative," Miller says. "They just aren't encouraged."

Allen Miller Arts

Tues., Fri., Sat. noon-6 p.m.

(First Fridays until 9 p.m.) Free

117 E. Chestnut St. 927-9405
www.allenmillerarts.com