Oculus - Stuart Allen
Stuart Allen is an artist whose work deals with fundamental elements of perception such as light, time, gravity and space. He has shown photographs, kites and sculpture in galleries and museums throughout the U.S. and abroad. His work is found in many private and public collections including the Tokyo Kite Museum, the Crocker Art Museum, the DiRosa Art Preserve, UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, and U.S. Embassy collections in Canada, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, and the Republic of Georgia. Allen has completed permanent public art commissions for the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, Canada and the Police Headquarters building in Davis, CA. His work has been published in a variety of books and journals including: Picturing California’s Other Landscape: the Great Central Valley, Terra Nova: Nature and Culture, You Are Here: the Journal of Creative Geography, Zyzzyva and Artweek. Allen has lectured or served as a visiting artist at many fine institutions including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Weisman Art Museum, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and a number of university art departments nationwide. Allen studied architecture at Kansas University and graduated from the photography and video department of the Kansas City Art Institute in 1994. He lives in San Antonio, Texas with his wife Kelly Lyons, their daughter Aidan and son Vincent. Allen is represented by the following galleries: PDNB, Dallas, TX; JayJay, Sacramento, CA; Jan Manton Art, Brisbane, Australia; Haw Contemporary, Kansas City, MO.
Stuart Allen, artist, photographer, sculptor, public art, kite, kite maker, art consultant, Jayjay, haw contemporary, pdnb gallery, science and art
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Oculus

Oculus, 2020
stainless steel, concrete
18′ x 12′ x 4′ (plaza dimension: 28 foot diameter)
Permanent installation: Kansas University Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas

Oculus is sited in a courtyard outside of the Health Education Building on the Kansas University Medical Center Campus. It references the physiology of the human eye, specifically, the rods and cones of the retina. The circular plaza upon which is rests completes the eyeball reference, including a stained ‘lens’ section at the plaza entrance. The sculpture is oriented due west, aligning the setting sun with the stainless steel tubes on the Vernal and Autumnal Equinox.

Oculus is a meditation on seeing, both the physical nature of sight, but also what it means to be ‘seen’ in the context of modern medicine.

Engineering:
Structural Design Consulting, Wimberly, TX

Fabrication:
River City Industries, San Antonio, TX
Lodder Concrete, Kansas City, MO
San Antonio Powder Coating, San Antonio, TX

Collection of the Kansas University Medical Center
Commissioned by the KU Endowment with support from the George & Annette Murphy Fund