Kerlin Gallery is pleased to announce Deep Waiting, an exhibition of new painting by Phillip Allen.

In his latest body of work, Phillip Allen’s fifth solo presentation with the gallery marks a vibrant evolution in the artist’s long-standing exploration of abstraction, materiality and the painted edge.

Described by art critic John Yau as “one of the great painters of his generation”, Phillip Allen has refused to settle into any one mode or style, choosing instead to continually push the possibilities of the picture plane resulting in paintings that are sculptural, optical and joyously excessive. Dense accretions of acrylic and oil paint form thick, encrusted borders that frame finely worked interior fields. Within these interiors, rhythmic geometries, spiralling motifs and kaleidoscopic colour sequences unfold with a sense of buoyant improvisation.

‘Deep Waiting’ reflects Allen’s ongoing interest in the mechanics of looking. Repetition, mirroring and near-symmetry lure the viewer into optical loops, while shifting palettes-moving from acidic neons to cool mineral tones-create a sense of movement that is almost musical. Throughout, Allen balances exuberance with control, humour with discipline, ornament with structure.

Phillip Allen’s new paintings reaffirm his status as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary abstraction, continually reimagining what painting can be: an object, an image, or a cosmic experience.

“Throughout the studio, drawings accumulate: taped to the walls, piled on tables, or stored neatly in display folders. Each one has been examined and reconsidered repeatedly, selected and then rejected, only to be reconsidered again. This ongoing sifting determines which drawings – or combinations of drawings – might serve as viable starting points for paintings. That moment of choosing functions as the inertia of the painting process, the point from which everything else begins to move.

Translating a drawing into a painting first needs a kind of literal friction. The wooden panels are coated in marble dust and fixed, creating a coarse, uncooperative surface. This resistance is intentional; it forces the first marks to contend with the ground, making the shift from drawing to painting a physical negotiation rather than a simple transcription.”

“There is also the question of waste – by-products that accumulate as part of the working method. The barnacle-like crust that forms along the outer edges of the painting is not incidental but necessary. It marks the boundary of the process, a residue that frames the image while reminding me of the material history embedded within it. I think of this build-up not as discard but as evidence of the painting’s making.

In the end, the work depends on allowing physical material and visual sign to coexist. Their friction and overlap mirror a dual process: the way one simultaneously hears the sound of a voice and understands the meaning of what is being said. The paintings operate in that same space – between sensation and interpretation, surface and image”.

– Phillip Allen