Marie Allen is a mixed-media artist, drawing inspiration from wild and ancient landscape and sea. Born in Derbyshire and living in the Peak District most of her life, she was inspired by the wild moorland. When her family moved down to Wiltshire over 50 years ago, it became her second home and has inspired much of her work.
'The themes and layers in my work reflect my fascination with what is hidden or buried in a landscape. I love exploring and discovering and the result is abstract because it is my unique conversation with, and response to, the passage of time, wild and ancient places, the marks left upon the land. I rarely paint plien-air, its enough for me to be in the landscape and absorb the spirit of place.
My paintings begin with mark-making and building up depth through layering/collage/print and I listen and respond to the marks that arise from my imagination – a 'conversation with landscape.' I don’t paint what the eye sees, but what the heart feels'.
Currently Marie is developing a body of work based on the sea and how its power and depths feed the need for wildness.