Art art

Jess Allen and the search for presence in absence

2 years ago

It is when the sun slowly sets and gives way to that hour of the day when everything is tinged with gold, in that moment suspended between light and darkness, that the paintings of British painter Jess Allen (1966) are placed, harnessing what is the power of light-shadow play. The artist projects her own figure, often accompanied by a second presence, onto domestic objects such as books and sofas, locating that seemingly mundane but deeply intimate poetic beauty. The same melancholic, light and loneliness-laden aura that emerges from her paintings is reflected in the soul of the artist, who lives and works “off the beaten path,” seeking a certain pure sphere free from any external “attack.”

“Shadows interest me immensely because they are silent and ephemeral. They are evocative and, like memories, they are somewhat hazy.”

In Jess Allen’s work, the search for presence in absence is evident. The human figure is not present in its mere bodily concreteness, but is made explicit by shadows, as well as by books, a direct container of human thoughts and reflections. The imagery created by Jess Allen is extremely everyday and familiar to the eyes of observers, who are lulled by simple images that evoke fragmented memories and singular emotions.

Likewise, as the artist herself says, her works represent the fragility of memories and visually translate the attempt to remember without tangible evidence. “The shadows suggest to me the haziness of memory when we try to return with our minds to a particular moment, experience or feeling,” says Jess Allen. Those moments that are impossible to visually reconstruct that seem to slip through our fingers, those moments that have not been captured by any camera, that which slowly recedes from our minds and which we try to recapture.

In Jess Allen’s works, as melancholy and sad as they are, there emerges a certain hope dictated by the luminous aura that surrounds them. “Often the meaning of a work emerges as I paint it, or even afterward. Perhaps it might be about grief or loneliness, absence or loss of a lover or partner. But there is definitely hope. Perhaps it is saying in some way that a special person can always be with us. Their presence is still present in our minds, expressed or symbolized here as a shadow.”