What Remains | A Solo Show by Ambrosine Allen

About

bo.lee gallery is delighted to present What Remains, a solo show by London based artist Ambrosine Allen. Using discarded encyclopaedias, Allen constructs meticulously collaged landscapes of wondrous depth and intrigue. Inspired by the detailed aesthetic of geographic engravings from the 17th and 18th Centuries, her visions depict cataclysm and chaos, romance and foreboding, beautiful turmoil and terrible wonder. Deluge and inferno ravage the landscape and great maelstroms churn in the skies. Such scenes are chosen to suggest the deep uncertainties and rapid, often violent change the world faces today, both environmentally and socio-politically. So too Allen addresses her own personal struggles with moving from the comfort of her childhood home in rural Suffolk to build a life in urban London.

Whilst the detail of her creative process holds the viewer in silent stillness, the imagery she selects does quite the opposite, sweeping us from our feet in thrilled uncertainty. We as individuals can often feel at the mercy of the awesome power of the world, both natural and man-made. Ambrosine Allen’s work identifies and empathises with those feelings flawlessly and in doing so offers us the warmth and reassurance of knowing that we are not alone.

Ambrosine Allen graduated from the MA Fine Art: Drawing at Wimbledon School of Art in 2005 and was a finalist in the Jerwood Drawing Prize the same year. Her first solo show Compendium to the New World at ROOM Artspace London in 2012 was a sell out and after exhibiting with All Visual Arts in high profile shows such as Metamorphosis: The Transformation of Being in 2012 she was listed in the top 5 artists to watch in Quintessentially Magazines profile on Young British Artists. Recent exhibition highlights include After the Ascent at Anima Mundi St Ives (solo), The Tragedy of Landscape at Griffin Gallery, London and the 250th Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy, London. She is exhibited globally in exhibitions and art fairs and her work can be found in numerous collections worldwide.