'Painting for me is a meditation. It is the mindful activity of looking. My paintings are observations and contemplations of simple forms, light and space. I hope to convey a sense of stillness and presence.'

Jess Allen


In her Cornish studio, in an old barn on the edge of the moorland, Jess paints simple ordinary objects, such as boxes, books and paper bags. Her many still lives of these items, have become increasingly paired down, quiet and understated. Working in the silence of looking, and responding to the seen, her still life paintings suggest a slowing down of time. She has been seeking to create as minimalist an image as possible, to encourage the viewer to enjoy the power of appreciating the unnoticed and the understated.

As well as being about the the simplicity of her subjects and about arrangements of these objects, Jess' paintings are equally about the spaces between, and around them. Echoing the Japanese aesthetic 'Ma', which literally means 'gap', 'space' or 'pause', and which, in Japanese art, specifically refers to the artistic interpretation of an empty space, her paintings are about, not just the objects, or their relationship to each other, but also the relationship of the objects, to their surrounding space. These works have become about a communication of simplicity and space.

Inspired by painters Morandi, Avigdor Arikha and William Nicholson, she is also inspired by the abstraction of Sean Scully, Agnes Martin, and Minimalism in general, which like 'Ma' could be seen as 'an emptiness full of possibilities '.