This is what I wrote about Allen’s work when I saw it in the Brooklyn Artists show in 2024:“I was surprised by how long Popeye held my attention so I looked at Allen’s website. It is from a series of painted-over collages he made using Popeye comics that his troubled brother obsessively collected and is an attempt to understand the unfathomable pain of his brother’s condition. It is obsessively layered too. At first it appears to be a city, then a storage facility, then maybe? — a brain.”
This is how Allen describes these drawings:
“In early January 2026 my mother entered the hospital. I carry a sketchbook with me wherever I go, and this case was no exception. I found the simple act of drawing her, my father, and siblings in that setting the only engagement that made sense.” For me sketching is a way to take in the world, to nurture that link running from hand to eye, to process life. “
