4th degrees communication styles

Phillip Allen’s paintings are the result of a continuous practice of sketching. Working on a small scale the sketches chart the inception and development of his abstract forms and arrangements. He then develops these ideas into distinctive paintings, executed predominantly in oil on board. To create an illusion of perspective, Allen often applies thick globules of paint to the borders of the work, creating a three-dimensional frame for the imagery within.

These impasto borders operate as a skin or marker between the outside and inside spaces of the paintings; defying the traditional confines of the painting, they appear to either expand outside the picture frame or encroach into the picture with an overwhelming presence. Within the borders, Allen’s lucid paint strokes evoke motifs of hallucinatory and kaleidoscopic dreamscapes. The imagery in ‘4th degrees communication styles’ was influenced directly by the mosaic ceiling of the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence. The work has used the visceral and graphic properties of paint as the crux of the paradox between representation and process.