I have always loved the combination of their abstract visual language that had roots in the landscapes and seascapes around them. During university I also studied in Milan where I had a very different urban environment and stimuli to react against with my work. The thought and art-making processes that I learnt in both these places are the foundation of how I work today. The use of my immediate landscape as inspiration for my work has been a constantly evolving subject. My aim is to create artwork that describes not just the physical aspects of a place but the sensation of being there.
My working practice starts with drawing and painting the coastline of Jersey en plein air, or outdoors. I spend time gathering visual information about a place by collecting and recording shapes, colours, textures, and the relationships between them. I sometimes leave the work as a fresh and untouched response to a place. Or I may take drawings and paintings to the studio and allow memories and ideas to spill out onto canvas or paper in an expressive way to try and capture the essence of the coastline of the island.
The things that draw me in to a landscape are the flux and variation in the landscape. The shapes, textures, and moods of the landscape that we all respond to in our own individual ways are a constant source of inspiration. There is so much change and movement along the beaches, cliff edges or tidal zones that I try and replicate that in my pictures. That is why I layer the materials, marks, and colours, like mimicking the action of the landscape. I see these as sensory fragments that hopefully send you to the water’s edge.
Description of my artwork, Coastline, by Allan Drummond, Judge of the 2017 JJ Fox competition
“To stand in a landscape and paint what you see before as clouds and shadows constantly change is a true challenge. This is what makes plein air so exciting. Robert Allen has two such paintings in this show. Both pictures show an artist working with authenticity and passion“.
Description of my artwork, Anne Port Winter, by Flora McLachlan, Judge of the 2019 JJ Fox competition
“This painting is a beautiful and assured evocation of landscape, with the distant headland floating amid sea, sand and cloud. It also demonstrates the expressive qualities of paint. I loved your orchestration of colour and texture, with the sandy paint dragged over with a dry brush of colour. It reminds me of Turner’s loosest Venetian paintings, with its rich crusty highlights and the interplay of ochres, pinks and blues.”
Description of my artwork, September Heat, by Jane Stanton, Judge of the 2022 JJ Fox competition
“Robert Allen displays a masterful, confident use of paint and a powerful sense of composition. Searching lines, playing with abstraction, and contrasting textures; Robert skilfully engages the viewer in a dialogue with his vision of the landscape. Through texture and mark making with paint, the surface is covered with wonderful passages of ambiguity open to interpretation by the viewer.”
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Instagram: robertallenartist
Website: robertallenartist
