Humanized Deer

Genoa Park is home to two whimsical bronze sculptures of “humanized” deer (a third sculpture in this series is located on the Rich Street Bridge). Country music singer and acclaimed visual artist Terry Allen came up with the concept after visiting the city and learning that the Scioto River takes its name from the Shawnee Indian word for “hairy water.” According to local legend, when the Shawnee first migrated to Scioto River valley from the Carolinas, they found deer hair floating in the river. To make the sculptures, Allen said he will use molds from a mounted deer and coat them with clay. He will then take the models to Walla Walla, Wash., where they will be cast in bronze.

Terry Allen is a visual artist and songwriter who was raised in Lubbock, Texas. He graduated from Chouinard Art Inst. in Los Angeles and has worked as an artist & musician since 1966. He has received numerous awards and honors including a Guggenheim Fellowship and National Endowment for the Art Fellowships; Awards for the Visual Arts (AVA), Washington D.C.; Bessie (New York) and Isadora Duncan (San Francisco)
His work has been shown throughout the United States and Inter-nationally, including Documenta and San Paolo, Paris, Sydney & Whitney Biennales and is represented in major private and public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and L.A. County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (MCASD) and Houston & Dallas Museums of Fine Art. His numerous public commissions can be found in such places as L.A.'s Citi-Corps Plaza, San Francisco Moscone Center, The Stuart Collection at UCSD in La Jolla, CA, Oliver Ranch in Sonoma, CA and Denver, Houston and Dallas/Ft. Worth Intercontinental airports. His book & theater piece DUGOUT was published in 2005 by Univ. of Texas Press and an extensive monograph TERRY ALLEN of Allen's work was published in 2010, also Univ. Texas Press, with essays by Dave Hickey, Marcia Tucker and Michael Ventura.


Terry Allen lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his wife, actress and writer, Jo Harvey Allen.