Tom Allen

Tom Allen (b. 1975, Springfield, MA) lives and works in Los Angeles.

Tom Allen makes figurative paintings of an unusually excessive nature. For the nature, so to speak, that he depicts is thoroughly and completely excessive, to the point of being unnatural. Drawing upon French fin-de-siècle painting and literature, such as Éduoard Vuillard and Gustave Moreau, the novels of J.K. Huysmans, as well as the Art Nouveau objects of Louis Comfort Tiffany and René Lalique, Allen synthesizes this frame of reference with everything from the hallucinatory iconography of post 60s counter-culture to an interest in mysticism and Death Metal, all to optically harrowing effect. As carefully crafted as they are saturated with botanical nuance, Allen’s generally small-scale paintings are the byproduct of a maniacal inquiry into color, form and space. They demonstrate an uncanny skill on par with that of Flemish still life masters or, say, Chardin, while nevertheless testifying to the pictorial invention of whole complex worlds. In this work, as per historical symbolism, nature assumes a thoroughly artificial revision. Infernal, magnificent, and presumably toxic, it, nature, is, if not idealized, then fetishized, the way, say, horror movies might fetishize the night. Finally, the explosive, otherworldly atmospheres and textures described in his pictures seem to be inhabitable only in dreams, nightmares or fantasy.

Upcoming solo exhibition includes Air de Paris, Paris, 2025.

Recent solo exhibitions include The Hour, The Approach, London, 2023; The Song, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, 2021; The Promise, The Approach, London, 2021; and Præternatura, Air de Paris, Paris, 2020.

Recent group exhibitions include Trespass sweetly urged, Tanya Leighton, Berlin, 2024; Immersed, Jack Siebert Projects, Los Angeles, 2023; Imperfect Paradise, Barbati Gallery, Venice, 2023; A Minor Constellation, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, 2022; and Particularities, X Museum, Beijing, 2021.