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I was asked recently why reference images images are so important and can you work without them. In ,my practice i dont use too many reference images as im bombarded with them every single day. Whenever i think of an image that my mind references alot ,its this. On September 30, 2000, a Palestinian cameraman from Gaza, Talal Abu Rahma, shot a video of a father and his 12-year-old son under fire on the Saladin Road, south of Gaza City. The boy, Muhammad al-Durrah, was mortally

Some exciting news: my painting Diaspora has been selected for Sussex Contemporary, and I’m really proud. I haven’t entered my work into many exhibitions or competitions, so putting it forward still feels like a step into unfamiliar territory. Last year, I submitted to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and wasn’t selected. Naturally, I looked at the work that did get in and wondered: where did I go wrong? Then I saw the cat paintings. Let’s just say they’re not really my th

This is about my algorithm, and how it finds its way into the work. When I draw on paper, I roll it out across the floor. And there's a kinship between that action and scrolling — the unrolling of a sheet and the endless unrolling of a feed. A day's accumulation of images on social media can shape what I make that day. Over recent months, much of my painting has been formed by images of the genocide that is happening now. I have to be conscious of that. There are so many stro

There’s an irony in this. A blog about AI, and right now I’m using Claude to take my spoken words and shape them into a draft I can stand behind. It isn’t changing my ideas. It’s taking them down in my own words, adjusting the punctuation, smoothing the small snags — because writing, for me, is where I get stuck. I come up against a wall. And here, AI is an extraordinary tool. AI is a difficult thing to approach as an artist right now. Post a single AI-generated image and you

Memory has never been a subject I add to a painting after the fact, it's the material I start with.

In the early 2010s, I was living in Miami, deep in a nightlife scene that was, in its own way, as rigid as anything it claimed to rebel against. Drag was everywhere — and so was the assumption of what drag had to be. A stage. A number. A lip-sync. An audience facing forward, waiting to applaud on cue. I wanted no part of that formula. So I created Amal Kiosk. The Name Was the Thesis Amal Kiosk wasn't a clever pun for its own sake. The name was the whole argument, compressed i

During my time in Miami i documented the young drag performers of the queer community and found myself getting more interested in creating performance wear for them. I would often design outfits from things i found hanging around the house like this mosquito sceen door material. I noticed that alot of the performers were struggling to make a living and they were performing for tiny amounts of money from the bars. It was incredible to see them so thankful to the bar owners for

In this painting series, I explore the concept of self as a tower—each tower a person, composed of the layers of memory, behavior, and experience that accumulate over time. I see these towers as metaphors for how we build identity—sometimes on stable ground, sometimes on shaky foundations. The base of each tower reveals this—in most, the foundation is unresolved, unfinished, leaving the figure perched precariously on uncertain ground. These blurred lines between tower and bac

So, For a long time now my work has been very figurative and story-based. I was telling stories directly. Personal stories, rooted in my lived experience, memories and trauma. At the time it felt necessary, and it felt honest and in some ways it was really cathartic But recently I began to look at my practice and I started to feel that the clarity of the narrative was also kinda limiting me. The story itself was doing way too much of the work and in some instances the imag

This triptych is my testament to transformation and self-reinvention. Each of the three panels functions like a blueprint of imagination: they echo the style of architectural drawings, yet they’re infused with the spirit of childhood. In creating them, I became the architect not just of structures but of a new narrative that turns once-abandoned toys into a chosen family of characters. The central panel, the heart of the triptych, began as a reflection on what we leave behind

So picture this: I’ve had an absolute stinker of a session — the sort where you think, “Right, that’s me done, send the bin lorry, tip me in.” Next thing I know, I’m in hospital. Not for a cheeky overnight, not for a “let’s stick you on a drip and see how you feel in the morning.” No. I’m there for about a month. When I finally come round enough to be parked on a normal ward with the other plebs, in wanders this doctor. Fresh shirt, hair all neat, looking like someone who’s n

https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/25628529.brightons-stow-rift-gallery-opens-karl-allen-show/ Stow & Rift Gallery in Brighton will launch on Saturday, November 29, with a show by artist Karl Allen. The opening coincides with the Winter Artists Open Houses programme in Brighton and Hove. Mr Allen said: "My vision for the gallery is to bring monthly shows by artists from around the UK who will curate a more immersive gallery experience." Located in a Grade II-listed house in the

“I’m an artist from Croydon with a long history of making marks in unexpected places. From childhood, when chalk and mischief went hand...