Exhibition Feature - DEAD SEA by Christina Allan at Alchemy Gallery

After her sold out debut in Alchemy Gallery’s June group exhibition, fem, the gallery is proud to present DEAD SEA, a solo show featuring the vibrant, fantastical works of Christina Allan.

This show builds on a recurring character in Allan’s work - the skeleton motif - for a series of paintings that unveil a world of spiritual creatures lurking in the depths of the deep sea which exude a bioluminescent-quality, created by Allan’s energetic painting technique that blends bold and hazy spray-painted and airbrushed forms. The glowing, vivid lifeforms and surrealistic elements captured by Allan, illuminate a dark dream-like ocean atmosphere and underworld in DEAD SEA, which will be on view through October 8th.

SIREN CAPTURED, 2022, 65 x 55 inch, acrylic on canvas

Curatorial Statement From Alchemy Gallery:

We first saw Christina Allan’s paintings on Instagram, and immediately wanted to collect her work personally. We were putting together a group show at the time with all dynamic female painters, and felt that her artistic style fit well within the cohesive narrative we were creating with the group exhibition. The haunting ethereal quality Allan creates surrounding her reaper-like central figures makes you question your own existence.

DEAD SEA is an evolution of those same thoughts. It shows a growth in her universe, and the characters that lurk in that brain of hers. From land, now to sea - she’s created a haunting series of paintings that unveil a world of spiritual creatures lurking in the depths of the deep, dark ocean. The characters Allan has created become more obfuscated by the murky depths while still keeping the universal themes for which she’s become known in her work.

One of the aspects that makes this show particularly interesting is Allan’s incorporation of airbrushing in her work, which creates that bioluminescent quality that fluorescent lighting has in the dark. The works really do feel like they’re vibrating off the canvas.

SEA NYMPHS, 2022, 58 x 55 inch, acrylic on canvas

DEAD SEA - Artist Statement from Christina Allan

My work is routinely fueled by a curiosity for the unknown, as I am always contemplating the individual and collective anxieties that surround the human condition and psyche, one's self, and one's relation to the world. I’m interested in exploring authentic psychological and philosophical struggles that we ultimately face through my art, including the inability of a finite being to comprehend what’s outside of our own existence, the infinite (the universe), and the classic existential struggle.

As humans, there is an innate curiosity and overwhelming desire to understand things we can’t possibly comprehend, things that are beyond us. Naturally, we create our own realities or stories of what exists as methods to make sense of a universe so profoundly complex, to ease the absurdity that we experience in the face of the unknown. As an artist, my work relays both a personal need to fully grasp the world and universe I was born into, paralleled with the acceptance that I never will.

My latest collection of work, DEAD SEA, goes off of this idea - it's an exploration into the vast oceanic world, something I’ve always been curious about. There is so much complexity in the mysterious nature of the ocean, especially because so much remains undiscovered and unexplored to this day. Thus, I wanted this series to communicate the sublime awe and greatness that the sea and its inhabitants evoke (both known and unknown, living and spiritual), and the mysteries and secrets that nature holds. The sea, in particular, has been feared and fantasized, through avenues including ancient folk tales of deep sea creatures to horror films depicting otherworldly, frightening beings.

The world I’ve created with DEAD SEA brings to life everything from skeletal sea gods to monsters, royalty, grim reapers, and mermaids. All of these creatures build on the skeleton motif, a recurring character in my work. Each work was composed as a digital painting in Photoshop, then translated into larger scaled works on canvas using an airbrush, spray paint, and acrylic paint to create glowing, vibrant lifeforms that mimic bioluminescent light, blended with surrealistic elements that illuminate a dark dream-like ocean atmosphere and underworld.