The Language of Listening By Pamella Allen

Pamella Allen is a Jamaican‑born visual artist whose practice spans more than 35 years. Her mixed‑media paintings, works on paper, and earthworks have been exhibited in traditional galleries and museums as well as non‑traditional settings, including site‑specific public art commissions for healing spaces such as Bellevue Hospital through the HHC Art‑In‑Medicine program, community and learning centers, the ACLU corporate collection, and private collections worldwide.

Allen’s participation in artist residencies has taken her across India, Europe, the UK, and the USA. A largely self‑taught expressionist, her work is layered in process, integrating acrylic, oil, and encaustic painting, printmaking, sculpture, papermaking, collage, installation, photography, video essay, and prose. Through this multi‑genre approach, she has developed her own archetypal language — a universal visual vocabulary inspired by symbolism, indigenous practices, and the mystic of nature.

Her art reflects the diversity of her Jamaican and African heritage and her lived experiences traveling the world and making art over land and sea. In 2018, Allen published The Language of Listening: Image and Prose, which received the AfriCan Authors Award. The second edition, The Infinite Electric, is scheduled for release in 2026.