Mary Macken Allen (b. 1993, Derby) is a figurative painter based in London. She graduated with a BA in Fine Art: Painting from Wimbledon College of Art in 2015, and completed the Turps Studio Programme in 2023.

Her practice reflects on human relationships and the fluid boundaries of the self. Centred around the slow build-up of thin layers of paint, her paintings create a space where time is slowed down and otherwise fleeting moments of intimacy are brought into
focus. Psychological states are realised through an intensified use of colour and a deliberate tautness in the gestures and poses of the figures: a hand reaching out, a gaze not quite met, a frozen gesture of touch.

Mary works from photographs she takes of people who are close to her – repeatedly painting the same friends - carefully constructing scenes, which are then dissected and reconstructed through collage, before eventually being translated into paint. There is an intimacy inherent in this process that is analogous to the intimacy in the scenes depicted. Recent works combine this imagery with elements and materials borrowed from her background as a scenic painter for theatre – deliberately blurring the boundaries between real and illusory, interior and exterior.

Selected exhibitions include Tomorrow is Tomorrow is Tomorrow, Kristin Hjellegjerde, London, 2023; Uprising, Kristin Hjellegjerde, Germany, 2022; Mood Times Ten, Fitzrovia Gallery, London, 2022; The Smoke, Terrace, London, 2021; In Momentum, Kristin Hjellegjerde, London, 2021.