Evoking a range of early modernist styles, from Cubism and abstraction to Art Deco, Phillip Allen explores form, volume, and the materiality of paint in abstract paintings composed of graphic imagery and patterns. Allen often begins with felt tip pen drawings, using them as starting points for his larger paintings, which often feature interconnecting geometric volumes and repeating patterns that teem around the center of his canvases. “Other things happen, slight variations, but I need the drawing in front of me,” he has said. Allen is known for the signature brackets he renders in thick impasto at the top and bottom of his canvases, framing the images. In recent works, he has painted a silvery enamel layer onto the typically gray, black, and brown forms and patterns within, creating a hazy effect that suggests processes of decomposition or dissolution.