Shin-ichi Nakazawa

Just as when one views the works of de Chirico, one should notice that the works of Allington also evoke dream images. You are looking at the drawing entitled "Ideal Standard Forms, Ornamental Version", The rococo ornamental pieces float in mid-air and case their wonderful shadows upon the floorboards. However if one looks closely, the floorboards appear to have once been ledgers, and there are many numbers and entries written on them, In other words, the floorboards already have been taken from another place and are now attempting to take on a different meaning. Hence, from the outset, the floorboards do not act as a base for receiving the objects' shadows. Here, there is absolutely no stable base to firmly take on objective meaning. Everything hangs in mid-air, beginning a limitless retreat and descent. Everything is in constant motion and changing while containing contradictory elements.

We often see such scenery in our dreams. It seems that Allington tries to figure out the structure of the world from his dreams. Certainly he is not the first to link dreams with art. There were many attempts by the surrealists long before Allington. However Allington, as a "post-modernity" artist, tries to lake a different approach to dreams, compared with the surrealists of the "modernity" era. When we consider the meaning of this mere difference between Allington and the surrealists, we begin to realise the strange qualities of the world in which we live. In this sense Allington is the most substantive artist of our time.

In fact he has a deep interest in his own dreams and keeps detailed records of them. For example, he describes the following dream: "In the dream, although asleep it was as if I was in the bed awake and somehow before me was a river. I was aware of being both in the bed and walking by the river at the same time, The river bank was crowded with men fishing, patiently accompanied by their wives or girlfriends as was quite usual on weekends or other holidays. I was deeply puzzled by the act of fishing which seemed to me the most futile and stupid activity possible, but watching from the riverside and from my bed things became clear. It was as if I had finally understood the meaning of fishing. The women were not as bored as I had at first imagined but merely bemused and indulgent of the men as they might be of small boys or fools. They were sitting there ripe and fertile, their loins and bellies secretly alive with new life. I realised that the river, which curiously was flowing up the land from the sea, was no! water as I had at first imagined but sperm. A river of whiteness, each fish a sperm, which the men in some strange ritual act of line and hook were enticing into the womb of their fishing baskets where they would die darkly. The men with deep intent, endlessly, with cunning art and the use of much machinerly pulled the fish-sperm from the while river while the women who accompanied them smiled and waited for the night. "l)

A curious dream. But beyond the fact that the dream itself is curious, what is so impressive to us is the fact that Allington himself comprehends the substance of his dream. While he dreams, he perceives the substance of that "certain thing" which passes through his sleeping body. The symbolic meaning of the dream is not understood in the Freudian sense, Rather he clearly grasps the source of the wondrous lines of sight and their structures. Therefore a connecting line firmly tics together the "certain thing" which passes through his body and his consciousness while he is asleep, and his consciousness while he is awake producing art works using plaster, paper and ink. In Allington's perception of the "certain thing" lies the mere difference from the surrealists. One might say Allington perceives his dream in the "postmodernity" way, with his perception being connected inter-newronic with his consicousness which is producing art works.