Introduction
Jess Allen’s first solo exhibition with Unit considers space, time and the inevitable transformation of present into past. This Is Now captures a series of fleeting moments in which shadows and figures overlap to represent the ephemeral and indistinct. The exhibition presents a series of paintings in which details are kept to a minimum. These are not portraits but are suggestions of presence, representative of feelings and moods. As vehicles to transmit her musings on time, Allen’s paintings become methods to “extend” the current moment for both artist and viewer. As such, This Is Now explores the ways in which imagery can trigger memories both specific and universal, rendering past as present.
The exhibition presents a series of paintings that are based on real moments from the artist’s life but are nonetheless universal in their connection to the everyday. At first, Allen uses photography to arrest these moments of “nowness”, capturing shadows on walls or furniture as sunlight pools in her sitting room. She then transforms these photographs into paintings. For the first time in over a year, Allen incorporates solid figures into her artworks alongside shadows. Figures and shadows alike are often based on Allen herself and her own family members. Subconsciously inspired by the artist’s childhood visits to the Tate, the exhibition’s title artwork, this is now, reminds viewers of David Hockney’s double portrait, Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy. Allen’s painting presents a self-portrait alongside a portrait of her husband and their cat, Simba. Set in their sitting room, it is an everyday domestic scene in which both figures exist together while maintaining their own inner lives. A previous artwork from Allen’s career is reproduced on the wall behind her, charting the journey of her own artistic development.
In paintings such as the passing of time, autobiography becomes a key theme. Sunlight through a window creates a shadow on a female figure relaxing on a sofa. Modelled on Allen herself, the figure takes time out to read and be in her own company. A series of artworks hangs on the wall behind her, recreations of paintings that Allen conceived six years ago. The open book with pages of empty words symbolises openness and also a story that has yet to be told. The painting tells its own story of time, of the literal passing of time, but also of how life can change over time. Shadows and figures connect in images like I even dream about you in which a standing silhouette falls over a sleeping woman, evoking her consciousness, dreams and memories. Equally, paintings appear within paintings to represent times gone by. In I remember everything, a recreation of a smaller artwork, the reunion, hangs on a wall next to a standing figure. The small painting is perhaps a visualisation of a past life or a fantasy. These paintings do not only represent a slippage between present and past, but they also unite the general and the specific as Allen uses her own life to create universal stories.
Ultimately, This Is Now explores the ways in which imagery can conjure the past. It is the ordinariness of Allen’s subject matter that is simultaneously able to speak to viewers and convey a sense of the self. These paintings suggest the ways in which we are shaped by our past as all indiscriminate moments coalesce to create our “now”. Using indistinct and nonspecific shadows, figures and settings, Allen suggests something broader that connects to our everyday psychology. Viewers are able to project their own experiences onto these paintings, making each artwork active rather than static. In This Is Now, the current moment does not slip so readily into the past but becomes present again through its very visualisation.
Selected Works
Jess Allen
the passing of time
2023
140 x 160 cm
Jess Allen
even the shadows are full of light
2023
128 x 148 cm
Jess Allen
epilogue
2023
80 x 100 cm
Jess Allen
I even dream about you
2023
112 x 122 cm
Jess Allen
I will never forget
2023
112 x 122 cm
Jess Allen
the secret
2023
18 x 24 cm
Jess Allen
I remember everything
2023
112 x 122 cm
Jess Allen
this is now
2024
150 x 200 cm
Jess Allen
interlude
2023
35 x 45 cm
Watch
Essay
Essay by Samuel Johnson-Schlee
Jess Allen is a connoisseur of the sofa, and the paintings on display in This is Now reveal the drama and the romance that is hidden amongst the cushions. Something I like about soft furnishings is the way they hold your body. The foam and feathers which fill the pillows on your sofa are designed to meet you just right. And when you get up from the sofa you can still see the places where your weight lay most heavily. It is a kind of relationship, the right upholstery becomes a source of comfort, pleasure, a certain kind of sensuality. To live together with someone, and to share your furnishings is its own kind of loving. To settle down in the warm hollow left by someone you live with and feel good about it is a marker of great romance.
Collecting
Biography
Jess Allen (b. 1966) is a contemporary British artist based in Cornwall. She studied at Camberwell College of Arts and Falmouth School of Art. Her practice is centred around domestic objects and locating the sublime in the seemingly mundane. She explores the gulf between our exterior façades and inner worlds, allowing us to glimpse the varying degrees of chaos and order that may lie behind doors.
Her recent solo exhibitions include This is Now, Unit, (2024); Like Dust the Shadows Remain, Scroll Gallery, New York (2023); Nobody’s Watching, Blue Shop Gallery, London (2022) and Books and Boxes, Blue Shop Cottage, London (2021). In 2023 she featured in international group exhibitions that include Through the Window, Sens Gallery, Hong Kong; Kiaf Art Fair, Gallery Mark, Seoul, South Korea; The Angel in the House, Studio West Gallery, London and Untold Stories, G/ART/EN Gallery, Como, Italy.
Allen’s works are held in the public collections of the 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; and The Corridor Foundation, China.
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