Tom Allen (b. 1975, Springfield, MA) lives and works in Los Angeles.

Tom Allen makes figurative paintings of an unusually excessive nature. For the nature, so to speak, that he depicts is thoroughly and completely excessive, to the point of being unnatural. Drawing upon French fin-de-siècle painting and literature, such as Éduoard Vuillard and Gustave Moreau, the novels of J.K. Huysmans, as well as the Art Nouveau objects of Louis Comfort Tiffany and René Lalique, Allen synthesizes this frame of reference with everything from the hallucinatory iconography of post 60s counter-culture to an interest in mysticism and Death Metal, all to optically harrowing effect. As carefully crafted as they are saturated with botanical nuance, Allen’s generally small-scale paintings are the byproduct of a maniacal inquiry into color, form and space. They demonstrate an uncanny skill on par with that of Flemish still life masters or, say, Chardin, while nevertheless testifying to the pictorial invention of whole complex worlds. In this work, as per historical symbolism, nature assumes a thoroughly artificial revision. Infernal, magnificent, and presumably toxic, it, nature, is, if not idealized, then fetishized, the way, say, horror movies might fetishize the night. Finally, the explosive, otherworldly atmospheres and textures described in his pictures seem to be inhabitable only in dreams, nightmares or fantasy.

He received his MFA from Art Center College of Design, and BFA from University of Southern California.

Tom will open a solo show at Air de Paris, January 2025. Recent solo exhibition was “The Hour,” The Approach, London, 2023. Recent group exhibitions include “Trespass Sweetly Urged,” Tanya Leighton, Berlin, 2024; “Immersed,” Jack Siebert Projects, Los Angeles, 2023; and “Imperfect Paradise”, Barbati Gallery, Venice, 2023. He participated alongside Angeline Rivas in Felix Art Fair, 2024.