Imogen Allen: Depth of Surface
Megan Mulrooney is pleased to present Depth of Surface, an exhibition of new paintings by British artist Imogen Allen. The exhibition will be on view from November 7 - December 19, 2026.
Throughout the exhibition, Allen takes inspiration from the natural world to create vibrant paintings that move between abstraction and recognizable forms. Bands of saturated color, wispy brushstrokes, and hazy undulations recall the structures of plant and animal life, while also suggesting landscapes, atmospheric phenomena, and images of the cosmos. Though rooted in close observation of nature, the paintings invite viewers to discover different associations within their shifting compositions.
The exhibition's title, Depth of Surface, speaks to a central question in Allen's practice: the capacity of a two-dimensional surface to suggest a more experiential and interior sense of depth. Butterfly wings, a recurring motif in her recent work, provide a compelling point of departure. Their extraordinary complexity is contained within an ultra-thin surface, the product of millions of years of evolution. For Allen, this offers a way of considering how the smallest manifestations of nature contain traces of processes operating on an immense scale. The same forces that shape the patterns of a butterfly's wing also govern the formation of landscapes, the movement of matter, and the evolution of life itself. Her paintings explore the continuities between the intimately observed and the seemingly infinite.
Allen develops each painting through two distinct but interdependent stages. First, she establishes the composition through improvisation. She then works back into the surface, blurring and merging her initial marks until the paint appears to dissolve into the weave of the canvas. This process softens the evidence of the artist's hand, allowing colors and forms to appear as though they are in the process of appearing, disappearing, or transforming. In works such as Sonic and Reverberation, the resulting compositions evoke phenomena ranging from sound waves to the formation of stars. In Skyspace and Surface Rhythm, patterns derived from butterfly wings take on the appearance of expansive landscapes or undiscernible organic and geologic structures.
In this way, Allen's paintings encourage a more associative experience of looking. Their forms can seem at once familiar and difficult to precisely identify, suggesting what Christopher Bollas termed the "unthought known": a kind of knowledge felt or experienced without having been consciously articulated. In this sense, the depth of Allen's surfaces lies in the perceptions, memories, and associations they bring forth in each viewer.
Imogen Allen (b. 1997; lives and works in Cornwall, England) received her BA in Fine Art Painting from Camberwell College of Arts, London (2020). Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Megan Mulrooney Gallery (Los Angeles), Nino Mier Gallery (New York), Harpers Books (East Hampton), Monti8 (Rome), Soho Revue (London) and Blue Door Gallery (Brooklyn), amongst others.
