Jess Allen

B.1966

Based in Cornwall, UK

Introduction

Jess Allen has had many years away from a public audience, working privately at her home in Cornwall. However, since 2020, her reputation has grown rapidly. Much of Allen’s new works explore the theme of ‘Presence through Absence’. Subjects such as empty chairs and sofas, books left behind by an absent reader, and empty theatres and cinemas suggest the past presence of a person or people. Her paintings explore themes of memory and time, and how art can often help us re-experience the feelings and emotions of an almost forgotten moment, with the shadow figures particularly encapsulating the vagueness of time past. Allen is building an international reputation with works in collections in the UK, US, Japan, Europe, Switzerland, China, Korea, Singapore, UAE, and Bahrain. She has had two sell-out London shows, as well as a solo show in New York. Allen has also exhibited in the US, Sweden, and Japan, with forthcoming exhibitions in New York, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Korea, Italy, and Paris.

Education

1984-5 Foundation, Camberwell School of Art 1985 – 88, London, UK

1985-87 BA, Fine Art Honours, Falmouth School of Art, Cornwall, UK

Solo Exhibitions

2024
This is Now, Unit, London, UK
Out Of Time, Nino Mier, Brussels, Belgium

2023
Like Dust, the Shadows Remain, Scroll Gallery, New York, USA

2022
Nobody’s Watching, Blue Shop Gallery, London, UK

2021
Books and Boxes, Blue Shop Gallery, London, UK

2010
Galerie Pelar, Long Island, USA

2005
Badcocks Gallery, Newlyn, UK
The London College of Fashion, London, UK

1990
Bridport Arts Centre, Dorset, UK

Group Exhibitions

2024
The Sphere of Reality and Fantasy, Corridor Foundation, Shenzhen, China
Inaugural Exhibition, Femmes Artistes du Musee de Mougins (FAMM), Mougins, France
The Armory Show, Nino Mier, New York, USA
contemporary domesticity ii, Taymour Grahne Projects, London, UK
Art Brussels, Nino Mier, Brussels, Belgium
Take a Seat, LAMB Gallery, London, UK

2022
West Bund Art Fair Presentation, Cubism Art Space, Shanghai, China
Inside Out, Scroll Gallery New York, USA
No 4, Morgans, Falmouth, UK
A Room of Her Own, Irving Contemporary, Oxford, UK
Habitat, Contemporary Six, Manchester, UK
Books, Cultivator London, London, UK

2021
Stratford Gallery, Broadway, UK
A Tiny Bit of Fire, Warbling, London, UK
Postcards, Magnus Karlsson Gallery and Mothflower, Sweden

2020
Why, Cultivator London, London, UK

Residencies

Arts Connected Residency, Maxx Royal Resort Bodrum, Turkey

Press

Artsy Editorial, 5 Artists on Our Radar April 2024, 3 April 2024

Collections

Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins (FAMM), France
Bunker Foundation (Rudin De Woody Collection), USA
Elie Khouri Art Foundation, Dubai, UAE
Sigg Art Foundation, Le Castellet, France
Corridor Foundation, China

“When many of the people who are important to us are absent or isolated from us… it is something that may be called the presence of absence.”

– David Gariff, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Seen only via shadows cast across empty furniture, or positioned with their backs to the viewer, the characters in Jess Allen’s artworks remain a mystery. The truth behind their silhouettes eludes the viewer; rather than divulging their secrets, Allen’s portraits operate as reflexive exercises of self-examination. Are these shadows cast by a protagonist within the world of the painting, the artist, or the viewer themselves?

Elevating typically mundane moments of everyday life, Allen finds deep wells of significance within the overlooked and unappreciated aspects of domesticity. Her focussed compositions zoom in on the signifiers of attachment that relate objects to their owners as she fills each artwork with personal references to her own home, family, and even her own earlier paintings. ‘Fills’ is a tricky word, however, as her paintings deal with a profound sense of absence, considering the aftermath rather than the action. As viewers we are left with only vestiges of human presence, indicated by plumped sofa cushions or forgotten books that hint at a much greater significance to their anonymous users.