By Stephen Cipoletto

Patrons of Coffee To The People may notice posters of the better known heroes of compassion and social justice along one wall: Ghandi, Einstein, and Harriet Tubman, to name a few. These figures are well-known throughout the world; their authority rarely ever questioned. However, throughout the month of March on the opposite wall, was something quite different.

This space, where the coffee house exhibits the work of local artists, has recently been the domain of Allison Danbom, whose portraits and figures stared back in mute indifference at the viewer and heroes hung across the room. As one sat, sipping coffee or having a bite to eat, it’s as if the two groups on the wall were having a silent conversation, a tangible spark that could lead to an all out intellectual war of the soul.

Danbom, 24, a native of Colorado and graduate of the Academy of Art, San Francisco, preferred not to name any artist as an influence on her work. Instead, she named writers, astrophysicists, 1970s Italian musicians, Ken Kesey, Stephen Hawkins, and Le Orme, as her muses, claiming that in their works she finds the inspiration to paint.

Danbom’s paintings—which are mostly portraits—have a touch of Egon Schiele and Lucian Freud but are darker and moodier. In her portraits and figures the flesh has a solid feel to it, a torrent of colors merge to bring together a fluid whole. Large areas of shadow are punctuated by swaths of revealing light, illuminating the subject with a fearless honesty, simultaneously urges one to look away yet keep returning to delve deeper into the canvas.

“My paintings are mostly autobiographical,” says Danbom, who lives on Treasure Island. She notes that the island has its share of the down-and-outer–exiles from Hunter’s Point–a strata of society to which Danbom lives in close proximity. She believes these individuals whom she encounters on a daily basis manifest themselves in her work.

Many of Danbom’s paintings exhibit a touch of the grotesque while embodying an array of human emotions varying from the absurd to the comical. The pallete dances over a rich texture of mixed media, alluding to the human struggle boiling beneath the surface.

Some portraits display a firm grasp of the naturalistic style while others melt away into an alternate reality where there are no rules. “Untitled” is a fine example of Danbom’s ability to capture the lurid and the beautiful in the same frame, the copious jewelry hanging around the neck bespeaks of the onus of material goods, the attractive yet blasé look of the woman’s face signifying the paradox of living. “What Was His Name Again” is another stand out piece combining Danbom’s talent in figurative as well as non-figurative expression implementing a pure play of color meticulously arranged to please the eye.

Danbom has been making art for about nine years, and started getting serious five years ago. She finds the current state of the artist to be a daunting task: how to continue making art and not succumb to the pressure of to selling it to make a living. Says Danbom: “I do it for the love of making art, and will be doing so no matter what.” She is an ardent student of the Greek philosopher Epicurus who said that everything is made of atoms flying through space to create objects. This being her first show, she has done her part to arrange the atoms to her visual accord.

Photos by Stephen Cipoletto