Photography by Ksenia Burasheva
Mary Macken Allen’s paintings reflect on human relationships and the fluid boundaries of the self. They use a language of fragmentation and repetition to suggest a self that is not fixed or singular, but multiple, porous, and continually in flux. She is interested in how moments of intimacy - touch, memory, encounter - can unsettle the distinction between self and other, allowing identities to overlap, echo, or blur.
Through varied and contrasting applications of paint and print, Mary constructs spaces where different temporalities coexist. Figures appear doubled, fragmented, or suspended between presence and absence, so that earlier and later selves, or traces of others, occupy the same image. She is drawn to the tension between a desire for coherence and the instability beneath it - a self that is performed, held together, yet always at risk of slipping or dispersing.