*Jess Allen in her Cornwall based home/studio*

Blue Shop Gallery presents
‘Nobody’s Watching’
A solo show by Jess Allen
17th Nov - 18th Dec 2022
PV Drinks 6-9pm | 16th November 2022
RSVP billy@blueshopcottage.com
72 Brixton Road, SW9 6BH

Until 18th December
Wednesday - Sunday | 11am - 7pm

In her images of empty seats in the home or in public spaces, and in her shadow figure paintings, Allen explores absence and presence, memory, and ideas around emptiness. Her large interiors are people-less, but they are imbued with a sense of those who have left, or should be there. Intimate home interiors, and empty chairs and sofas, with books on them, or shadows passing over them, suggest questions, and a sense of longing for a past moment in time. She says of the shadow figures, that they are like a visual echo, and also ‘like dust, the shadows remain’.

In Art Edit Magazine, Erin Irwin writes about Jess Allen’s work:

“Working from observation, the presence of light and shade feels inevitable,” says Cornwall-based painter Jess Allen. “I like this visual game of presence and absence.”

Composing pared-back interior scenes featuring tableaus of silhouettes and shadow, the artist seeks to capture a moment in time without resorting to a conspicuous or distinct narrative. Natural light falls from above onto familiar domestic scenes, where closely cropped views of couches and stacks of books are over layed with shadow figures – indeterminate and unnamed portraits that stand just out of view. Allen does not name these figures, instead hoping that the audience can impute their own experiences and desires on their indistinct forms. By using the interplay of light and shade, the artist elevates her subjects to an archetype or allegory, to be understood by her audience using their personal experiences. Her true subject then is not any one person, but time itself, defined by the angle of the sun and the tilt of the earth’s axis. It is defined by omission, the length and distortion of shadows defining a particular instant which the artist has carefully and attentively recorded using her striking, muted style. Allen’s paintings are quietly compelling, their composition making them feel intimate. By placing light and shade at the centre of her practice, and elevating the consideration of shadows to become the fundamental element of her works, Allen has beautifully personalised the universal experience of time.

This is Jess Allen’s second solo show at Blue Shop. As well as having many UK Collectors, she is also building an International reputation with works in Collections in the US, Japan, Europe, Switzerland, China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, UAE, and Bahrain. She has also exhibited in the US, Sweden, and Japan, with forthcoming exhibitions in New York, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.

Jess lives in Cornwall with her husband Sculptor Simon Allen.

'Nobody's Watching' by Jess Allen

Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair

'When is Now' by Chris Hagan