Art By Allan
Allan Cooney was born in Cunnamulla, Queensland. Born int
o a farm family and spent many
years in the family business before going into an executiv
e career in management. Now lives in Toowoomba
but thinks Eulo in far western Queensland is home.
He has worked variously as a jackeroo, barman, roustabout, labo
urer, ringer, salesman, footballer, station
manager, pastoralist, classer, studmaster, activist, pilot, consul
tant, business executive, trainer, mentor,
share trader, CEO. Allan has worked in places like China, Antarcti
ca and South America, and across most of
Australia. He helped develop a new economic engine for rem
ote aboriginal people, lead an Antarctic
expedition, has been a passionate advocate for sound stewa
rdship of the land and through all that, an artist.
Allan
’
s work has a meaning to it, to be evocative, sometimes an
observation of contemporary matters,
sometimes to be a calm place in a strange world. The sign
ature work is large and can
“
fill
”
a room. Allan
doesn
’
t try to paint with a particular style or to an identifi
able genre, though his work has an identifiable
character that is unstructured with obvious
“
hand
”
and a degree of naiveté. Each work is a new adventure.
Allan likes the art to be personal as a sharing of himself in
the work. And mostly he likes to be certain that
within everyone is an artist and art is universal.