Price range: USD$89.00 through USD$199.00
A signed fine art print of my original Josh Allen portrait, created for anyone who knows that being from Buffalo, or loving Buffalo, is a condition you carry around for life.
Buffalo Heart is a museum-quality giclée reproduction of my original oil painting, professionally printed on cotton rag paper using archival pigment inks.
Each print is made in Melbourne, Australia by independent fine art printer THIRDS, personally signed by me and accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity.
Starting at: A4 / 8.3 × 11.7 inches
US$89 — includes tracked shipping to the USA.
Buffalo Heart took me more than a year to paint. Layers upon layers of oil washes.
But if we're being honest, it probably took a lifetime.
I grew up in Buffalo, New York, with my first art lessons in a West Seneca basement.
Now my nest is more than 10,000 miles away in Melbourne, Australia, where football season involves questionable sleeping patterns, yelling at televisions at ungodly hours and occasionally wondering why I voluntarily put myself through this.
Because Buffalo. Obviously.
It gets into you for life.
Through four falls in the ’90s. A 17-year playoff drought. 13 seconds. Snowstorms. Meat raffles. Tailgates. Neighbors digging neighbors out. Complete strangers donating money to complete strangers because somebody somewhere needs it. That's the Bills Mafia.
And a football team that has broken our hearts so many times it would be perfectly reasonable to walk away.
And still, we show up.
The idea to paint Josh came to me on the yoga mat—which, for reasons I can't explain, appears to be a portal to my very best ideas.
I love expressive portraiture, but I'd never painted anyone famous. Oh the pressure!
And painting someone you deeply admire while knowing that Bills Mafia is comprised of several million loyal, lovable maniacs with VERY STRONG OPINIONS?
Not intimidating at all.
But I had to.
Something about Josh's story felt familiar.
The underestimated kid from Firebaugh. The overlooked college prospect. The guy people said was too inaccurate, too raw, too much of a gamble.
And then watching him become one of the best quarterbacks in football.
Josh's story and Buffalo's story overlap.
The underdog.
The place people underestimate.
The willingness to get knocked down, get back up and have another go.
That's where Buffalo Heart really began.
I didn't want to make a conventional sports portrait.
So there are little pieces of the story tucked into the painting.
The buffalo horns are perhaps the most obvious.
A Third Eye represents wisdom and intuition (and superhuman sight on the battlefield).
Gladiolas, historically associated with Roman gladiators, represent strength and courage.
Daisies bringing a little yin to all that yang. Sunflowers for a city that does not get enough sun.
And Native American arrowheads acknowledge the land upon which he plays.
The buffalo as a symbol itself became increasingly important as I painted.
Strength. Generosity. Community. Survival.
The more I worked on the piece, the less Buffalo Heart seemed to be just about one football player.
It became about home.
There is something wonderfully weird about creating this painting on the other side of the world and then sending prints of it back to Buffalo.
Buffalo Heart was professionally photographed by artist and museum photographer Matthew Stanton and the prints are produced for me by THIRDS, a small independent fine art printer in Brunswick, Melbourne.
They use archival pigment inks and cotton rag fine art paper to reproduce the colour, texture and detail of the original painting as faithfully as possible.
This isn't a mass-produced poster. It's a piece of art.
A proper fine art reproduction of a painting that took me more than a year to make, printed with materials designed to last.
I personally sign each print, add its Certificate of Authenticity, and carefully package it for the long journey to all the Bills fans still in my home city or the many MANY Buffalo expats all over the globe.
Maybe you live in Western New York.
Maybe, like me, you somehow ended up thousands of miles away.
Maybe you grew up with the Bills.
Maybe you married into this madness and there is no escape (hi, husband and kiddos!)
Whatever brought you here, I hope Buffalo Heart reminds you of the thing I've realized more and more as I've gotten older:
Buffalo isn't just where you're from.
It's part of your identity.
Buffalo Heart — Signed A4 Fine Art Print
US$89
Includes tracked shipping to the USA
Go Bills.
For the Love of Buffalo,
Dawn
Buffalo Heart is an independent work of fan art and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or officially licensed by Josh Allen, the Buffalo Bills or the NFL.
