You have most likely seen Allegra Sleep’s work on Art Banners and Utility Boxes around town, it’s hard to miss with her figurative motifs and bright palette.
I’ve known Sleep since she was a teenager in the early 90’s, and frequented a Sunday Night Open Mic, started by singer/songwriter Cindy Lee Berryhill and I, in 1990, that traveled through various local cafes, eventually landing at the late, great End of the Universe Cafe, upstairs on the plaza. Interestingly enough, several of the local kids who were regulars on Sunday nights, have become accomplished artists, including Anais Rumfelt and herself.
“I have such great memories of that place, it was such a cool scene,” she told me recently when we met for coffee at yet another local cafe.
It was; I was lucky to have been taken under the wings of some fine feathered friends, soon after making Taos my base, following a decade of coming and going from NYC.
Thanks to the late artist and poet, Bill Gersh and his sidekick, thespian Steve Rose, Taos Poetry Circus founders Anne MacNaughton and Peter Rabbit, and artist Anita Rodriguez, there were no shortage of surprise guests, including the fabulous Clarissa Pinkola Estés who would come down from Colorado to read her poetry often.
As did the legendary Michael Horowitz, Beat poet Kell Robertson and all the other cowboy, punk and local poets and musicians who showed up week after week, including an earlier iteration of local faves, Art of Flying.
And then there were the cool kids, who were the impetus for doing it in the first place, and of whom Allegra Sleep was one of the coolest.
I had wanted to give the local teenagers a creative outlet and a safe place to go, so deliberately kept the event alcohol free and early on a Sunday eve, so everybody came It was standing room only most Sundays.
Fast forward twenty odd years and Sleep’s work nods to pop art and post-impressionism, as well as the multi media mash-up that is a mark of her generation: it’s both timeless and timely, but the style is distinctly her own. She cites unlikely influences, including the late Disney creator and painter, Malcolm Furlow, a long time Taos resident also.
“When I was in high school,” she told me, “I’d walk past the gallery he showed in, and just stare at his work in the windows, mesmerized.
It was the color, so bold and saturated, as well as the form,” she explained.
“I love Scripture’s work,” she responded immediately, when asked about her contemporaries in Taos.
“Scripture,” who also grew up here, is a multi talented artist and tattoo artist who has several murals gracing buildings around town.
Sleep has a slight hearing disorder, but she misses little, and I wondered if it had only served to gift her with sharper vision.
“Perhaps,” she laughed, “ but I’ve always been extremely visual,” she said.
Indeed Sleep has been making art since early childhood. Born in Nicaragua as the beleaguered country was erupting into revolution, born an artist, to an artist, she grew up in art galleries, studios and on theater sets. She was in her first group show at the American Embassy in Managua at the age of two. She spent her childhood in Central and South America until she moved with her mother to Taos in 1990.
“My mother is a painter,” she explained, “and that was a great education, early on.”
Her work frequently references her childhood in Latin America, as well as romantic flashbacks of Taos and the West as it once was, rendered in Kodachrome.
Sleep works in acrylics and watercolor, and often uses saturated primary colors in her paintings. Her work frequently references scenes from a childhood in Latin America; as well as old black and white family photographs. She was a Finalist in The Artist's Magazine's Annual Art Competition in 2013, and has been featured in Southwest Art Magazine twice. The artist has shown and is collected internationally, and is a signature member of the Taos Watercolor Society.
A little known quirk; she doesn’t sign the front of her paintings.
“I believe my work is recognizable without a signature,” she says. She signs the back of each piece, just in case. Provenance is after all, what matters at the end of the day.
Her bold and vibrant representations have earned her several accolades and awards. She was a finalist in The Artist’s Magazine’s annual art competition; Juror’s Choice in Southwest Art Magazine and Artist’s Choice Award at the Taos Fall Arts festival. The artist won the 2019 Taoseña Award awarded by the Taos Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with Taos Magazine and the Taos News. Allegra's artwork has also been featured in "Taos IS Art" Lamppost Banners in downtown Taos over the years, and this year is no exception.
Sleep’s work can be found at Saatchi.com, and Los Comadres Gallery in Taos. Allegra is a signature member of the Taos Watercolor Society, and is currently its president. She is presently on the lookout for a studio/gallery space in downtown Taos.
I had an art studio in the one room schoolhouse in Arroyo Hondo for awhile,” she reminisced, and a studio on Bent Street, before the real estate boom.
“I’d love to find something on Bent Street, again” she mused out loud, “where I can paint and show my work, I know it’s a long shot, but I’m putting it out there.”
