Imogen Allen

Overview

"I see the human relationship to wildness as central to the architecture of our being" - Imogen Allen

Imogen Allen’s work is informed by a profound connection with the natural world, seeing the human relationship to wildness as central to the architecture of our being. Having grown up in South West Cornwall, on the edge of a moorland, she elevates the minutiae of its landscape in her work; blankets of lichen and ethereal grasses grow and mutate across her luminous paintings.

Allen intends her paintings to be portal-like, their semi-abstracted, almost kinetic terrains reflective of our own conscious and subconscious experiences. For her, this spiritual connection to the earth and its organisms is grounded in the physical language of colour, pigment and gesture, the artist’s way of calcifying her inexpressible symbiotic relationship with the environment that surrounds her. When viewed together, her work becomes a world of its own, its ineffable thread woven together by vivid colours, shifting depths and undefined scale.

Biography

Imogen Allen (b.1997) lives and works between Cornwall and London. She completed a BA in Fine Art Painting at Camberwell College of Arts (2020). She was the winner of the Penwith Gallery’s Young Artist Award in 2024, and has an upcoming solo exhibition with the gallery in St Ives. In 2023, she undertook the KAAYSÁ art residency in Sao Sabastio, Brazil. Her work has been included in group exhibitions with galleries including: Arusha Gallery, London (2023) and Appach Gallery, London (2021).

Exhibitions