Nino Mier Gallery is thrilled to announce Out of Time, an exhibition of paintings by British artist Jess Allen. The exhibition features oil paintings of raking shadows projected across cropped domestic interiors. The works emerge at the atmospheric crux between present and past, conjuring the liveness of an object or place we also sense is lost. The exhibition, our first with the artist, will be on view from 12th September to 26th October in Brussels.
Jess Allen’s paintings feature close-ups of interior architecture and furniture—the ridge of a bench, a bent-up pillow—rendered in a rich color scheme dominated by deep reds, oranges, greens and blues. Stark shadows of figures or architectural features are cast across the fabrics and walls painted in each background. Allen’s shadows function like an inverted spotlight, creating focus and presence through absence. Crumpled cushions on sofas suggest a past human presence through their indentations. Areas of blankness within shadows allow space for thought. Light and shade index the passage of time, with shadows suggesting fleeting moments created by specific angles of the sun's rays and the earth's axis.
Shadows are potent but mutable, much like memories that are evocative yet hazy. They capture fleeting moments in time and, when represented, memorialize specific instants within their transient forms. “Shadows interest me immensely because they are silent and ephemeral. They are evocative and, like memories, they are hazy. In a way, they are a minimal representation of our physical selves,” Allen writes.
Intimacy becomes, in Out of Time, an experience beyond physical proximity. Closeness and intimacy can be conjured out of time, through memory and thought. The exhibition forges connections free of voyeurism, focusing instead on conveying mood and feeling. “Detail is deliberately kept to a bare minimum in order for this aspect to have dominance,” notes Allen. “Because the shadow figures are unspecific, I hope that the viewer will more readily relate to them, and bring their own experience and feelings, and subsequently create a symbiotic exchange.”
The works in Out of Time are experiments in free association for the viewer. Space, emptiness, and absence not only bring focus to what exists in the compositions, be it the shadow of a figure or the pattern on a hardwood floor, but also leaves room for the viewer’s own imaginative rememberings. And alongside their meditations on presence, absence, loss and memory, the works in Out of Time elevate mundane daily encounters with domestic space and light. Through Allen’s masterful use of color, shadow, and composition, she transforms ordinary interiors and furniture into subjects of deep introspection.
Jess Allen (b. 1966; lives and works in Cornwall; UK) studied at Camberwell College of Arts and Falmouth School of Art. Allen has had recent solo exhibitions with Unit, London, UK; Scroll Gallery, New York, NY, US; Blue Shop Gallery, London, UK. Her recent group exhibitions have been with Sens Gallery, Hong Kong, CN; Gallery Mark , Seoul, SK; Studio West Gallery, London, UK; and G/ART/EN/ Gallery, Como, IT. Allen’s works are held in the public collections of Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins (FAMM), France; Elie Khouri Art Foundation, Dubai, UAE; Sigg Art Foundation, Le Castellet, France; and The Corridor Foundation, China.