Welcome to Pamella Allen Fine Arts
Pamella Allen is a Jamaican born, Brooklyn based visual artist in practice for over 30 years whose works have been exhibited in traditional gallery and non-traditional settings, in site specific public art corporate commissions for healing spaces such as Bellevue Hospital for the HHC Art-In-Medicine program, community centers and private collections across the globe.
A largely self-taught expressionist artist, Pamella's work is layered in process. Utilizing traditional acrylic, oil and encaustic painting, printmaking, sculpture, paper making, collage, Installation, photography/video essay & prose to develop her own archetype, a universal language of images inspired by symbolism, indigenous practices and the mystic of the natural world that speak to the diversity of her Jamaican/African heritage, relationship with death and lived experiences as a woman, a world traveler and sailor and an immigrant living in the USA.
“My works create a space to find connection, place & peace, informed by memory, culture, ritual and kinship with our natural landscapes.”
Series: Mixed media Paintings: Portraits of Souls-Mandalas/Circles & Symbols- Handmade Paperworks created with recycled elements- Journalistic Art Books- Mixed Media Collage works- Installation/Video- Prose
A largely self-taught expressionist artist, Pamella's work is layered in process. Utilizing traditional acrylic, oil and encaustic painting, printmaking, sculpture, paper making, collage, Installation, photography/video essay & prose to develop her own archetype, a universal language of images inspired by symbolism, indigenous practices and the mystic of the natural world that speak to the diversity of her Jamaican/African heritage, relationship with death and lived experiences as a woman, a world traveler and sailor and an immigrant living in the USA.
“My works create a space to find connection, place & peace, informed by memory, culture, ritual and kinship with our natural landscapes.”
Series: Mixed media Paintings: Portraits of Souls-Mandalas/Circles & Symbols- Handmade Paperworks created with recycled elements- Journalistic Art Books- Mixed Media Collage works- Installation/Video- Prose
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I create my on-site earthworks with elements that I find in those landscapes, so each earthwork is an honoring of the natural world and a self-portrait of that landscape, a kind of storytelling - a visual history told with the bones and discarded homes of sentient beings.
Finding Center / Nature Speaks History-A Living Earthwork
Finding Center / Nature Speaks History-A Living Earthwork
25’D Oyster shells, conch, clam and mussel shells, quartz stone, willow branches, wood chips from recycled trees, living ancient fern bushes, solar lights, grass, soil and sound. ©️Pamella Allen 2023
Dictated by the landscape and history of The Old Stone House of Brooklyn, in May of 2023, beneath an 80-year-old cherry tree, I began the process of creating a living earthwork entitled, Finding Center by incorporating oyster shells that represent our historical reliance on our waterways, starting with the first people, the Lenape. Solar lights represent the eternal flame for the souls of the enslaved individuals who toiled on these lands and all life that inhabited this land. Ancient fern bushes and recycled wood chips create a habitat for the endangered local ecosystem. The circle represents the cyclical nature of life. A community poem imbibed onto the quartz stones tell a story of our present-future relationship with history and our natural landscapes. In August 2023, the final evolution of the earthwork occurs as the natural world and the seasons change the landscape, grasses grow taller with the ancient fern. I crush oyster shells to evolve the piece, add more willow, unearth the prose stones, braid some of the tall grass that quickly created a home for the mother and her swarm of pollinators, praying mantis and all sorts of life in an ecosystem that thrives. I created a soundscape that is embedded into and emanating from the earthwork. Sound that echoes the natural world, abstracted and layered sound that echoes memory. Nettie and Amiria call a Māori Karakia (blessing) in song and voices reverberate reciting the community prose piece (Finding Center/For in Light There Is Promise) that is written on the quartz stones that create the exterior circle of the earthwork. In following the evolution of the seasons in that small 25’ circle, I remain in awe of the natural world, in sharing process with community to create the earthwork I am awed by humanity. The end of my time working on this piece came in August and was dictated by a family of wasps who nested within the braided grass circles of Finding Center, as I watch these golden pollinators busily flying about fulfilling their purpose to maintain balance, I am filled with gratitude. Pamella Allen 2023
25’D Oyster shells, conch, clam and mussel shells, quartz stone, willow branches, wood chips from recycled trees, living ancient fern bushes, solar lights, grass, soil and sound. ©️Pamella Allen 2023
Dictated by the landscape and history of The Old Stone House of Brooklyn, in May of 2023, beneath an 80-year-old cherry tree, I began the process of creating a living earthwork entitled, Finding Center by incorporating oyster shells that represent our historical reliance on our waterways, starting with the first people, the Lenape. Solar lights represent the eternal flame for the souls of the enslaved individuals who toiled on these lands and all life that inhabited this land. Ancient fern bushes and recycled wood chips create a habitat for the endangered local ecosystem. The circle represents the cyclical nature of life. A community poem imbibed onto the quartz stones tell a story of our present-future relationship with history and our natural landscapes. In August 2023, the final evolution of the earthwork occurs as the natural world and the seasons change the landscape, grasses grow taller with the ancient fern. I crush oyster shells to evolve the piece, add more willow, unearth the prose stones, braid some of the tall grass that quickly created a home for the mother and her swarm of pollinators, praying mantis and all sorts of life in an ecosystem that thrives. I created a soundscape that is embedded into and emanating from the earthwork. Sound that echoes the natural world, abstracted and layered sound that echoes memory. Nettie and Amiria call a Māori Karakia (blessing) in song and voices reverberate reciting the community prose piece (Finding Center/For in Light There Is Promise) that is written on the quartz stones that create the exterior circle of the earthwork. In following the evolution of the seasons in that small 25’ circle, I remain in awe of the natural world, in sharing process with community to create the earthwork I am awed by humanity. The end of my time working on this piece came in August and was dictated by a family of wasps who nested within the braided grass circles of Finding Center, as I watch these golden pollinators busily flying about fulfilling their purpose to maintain balance, I am filled with gratitude. Pamella Allen 2023
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About Finding Center the Poem created in collaboration
with community at the Old Stone House of Brooklyn NY, June 2023: For 120 minutes on a Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn at The Old Stone House, I shared prompts that I created and invited the community to contribute their words, thoughts and memories to a collaborative community poem to be incorporated into my Living Earthwork, “Finding Center” [25’D Oyster shells, willow branches, quartz stone, ancient fern bushes, mulch with recycled trees and branches, solar lights, grass and soil]. For 120 minutes the community shared their inspiring words, thoughts, memories and together we deconstructed their individual contributions and created a new poem. A poem that speaks to our shared wisdom and collective experiences with our natural landscapes and histories. Back in my studio, I added more contributions collected from the community, edited just slightly, collaged their words within a circle and finally transcribed the full poem to share. Collaborating with community was truly a blessing & an honor. Thank you all for gifting us your word-wisdom. Thank you for opening your hearts to share your stories. Thank you to my collaborators Rosalinda Autumn Keating, Zoe Berkovic, Phil Alexander, Yangchin Li, Veda, Katherine Gressel, Grace Freedman, Angela Corker, Lorraine Brink Rivera, Gilbert Rivera and Mary Lou Maletta. Pamella Allen ©️2023 |
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“What The Trees Gave Me”
Onsite Earthwork Installation at Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio
25’ D- Conch, Lightening Elk, Jingle, and Quahog shells, Quartz Stone, Reeds, Moss, fallen tree branches and leaves, on soil
Pamella Allen 2021
Onsite Earthwork Installation at Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio
25’ D- Conch, Lightening Elk, Jingle, and Quahog shells, Quartz Stone, Reeds, Moss, fallen tree branches and leaves, on soil
Pamella Allen 2021
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GROUP EXHIBITION
"FAMILY TIES' |
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Cover Art: Jamie John
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"Night Sun" I created this series of video paintings by filming my installation of "Paper Shells" with movement, light and natural sound elements; then adding another layer of video editing to create this image for large-format immersive projection as a part of a larger mixed media installation in progress.
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"Dreaming The Leaf" Wallpaper Pamella Allen 2021
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