Imogen Allen

At the heart of Afterglow lies Allen’s search for a “primal connection” to an ancient consciousness, born out of the ocean. 

Lichen, seaweed and octopi have all become repeated motifs in Allen’s work, manifestations of sentient life forms which evolved in the oceans billions of years ago and still survive today. When submersed in the ocean, Allen is able to access these organisms not merely as an observer but as a participant in their world. Underwater, the act of looking becomes an experience of presence, and it is the artist’s goal to bring these perspectives back to the surface, for viewers to gain an understanding of nature from within.

Allen’s source material is always based on her direct contact with nature, often first translated through her personal photography.  The artist herself admits she is not trying to compete with nature’s imagination – an impossible task – but the fantastical textures and colours inherent to the landscapes that have inspired her provide a limitless pool of inspiration and a natural barometer against which to measure her work.

Her practice mirrors the ebb and flow of the tides, with broad, sweeping gestures achieving a delicate sfumato quality, followed by a reworking of detail.

Allen’s fascination for the natural world stems in part from her travels, and her admiration for women explorers like Margaret Mee and Marianne North. Though Allen’s work is less concerned with scientific taxonomy than theirs, she is motivated by the same spirit of adventure, curiosity, and respect for the variety of natural forms found in specific places. She followed in the steps of North when she journeyed to the Brazilian rainforest for an artist residency in 2023, and more recently Allen has returned from a four month painting residency in Western Australia, another one of the world’s acclaimed biodiversity hotspots. 

Her intention is to marry a scientific study of nature with a wider, more energetic purpose, learning from non-Western worldviews such as Australian First Nation philosophies, as well as the work of Venezuelan artist Luchita Hurtado. Both examples share beliefs in a unified theory of existence, emphasising the inseparability between self, land and cosmos.

For Allen too, the mystery of life is one found in natural cycles, and an ineffable dialogue between form and formlessness. Developing the inherent relationship between water and energy, water and paint, and therefore paint and energy, Allen can materially trace her works back to the oceans themselves, and, by extension, the earliest moments of our world and the birth of consciousness.