We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jonathan Allen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jonathan, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I am a multi-disciplinary visual artist, working in installation, painting, video and performance, often collaboratively. There is not a central monolithic mission or singularity to my practice; rather, different bodies of work speak to urgent personal, social, or political matters. I feel it vital that artists vigorously inhabit and engage the world surrounding them through their art, and – particularly at this moment in American history – ask questions, provoke dialogue, and be present.

For example, in 2017, I began my ongoing ‘Interruptions’ project, primarily as a way to voice my – and many others’ – resistance to Trump and his myopic, conservative, authoritarian worldview. These are painted, collaged unsanctioned interventions in New York City street and subway advertisements, that offer social commentary through text and image. I’ve installed and documented over 400 of these interventions, addressing political, social, and cultural issues from the Mueller report to Black Lives Matter to the Kavanaugh hearings to Gaza.

Before this project, I had never worked in public before, never intervened in existing advertisements, and never made work that was so overtly political. But in light of the autocracy that the United States is sliding into, and the cultural and social upheavals over the last decade in American politics, I felt this was critical.

This project has forced me to answer to other more personal matters through my work. My brother slid into mental illness and homelessness as I acted as his caretaker, a challenging and traumatic situation that I felt I had to bring into my practice. Most explicitly, through my Popeye and Whiplash series I tried to channel the tumult of this time in my life, using materials and techniques directly gathered from this experience.

Jonathan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

At this point in my practice, I’m focused on painting and public art. Through my paintings I try and conjure the imagery, context, conflicts and beauties/horrors surrounding being alive in 2025. The complexity, contradiction, ambiguities and hidden complicities of this moment in history are never far from my mind as I make mixed-media works through both deeply personal and deeply political lenses. My public art project, Interruptions, began after the 2016 election in response to the rightward lurch of American politics and cultural sensibilities.

I have been drawing and painting since I was a child growing up in Georgia, one in a family of nine kids. I studied painting at Columbia University, and have made New York my home since 1993. Most recently my work was included in The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition, on view at The Brooklyn Museum 2024-25. This exhibition showcased 200+ Brooklyn artists, and was a notable survey of the borough’s wildly eclectic creative spirit! Additionally, I’ve exhibited nationally and internationally at a number of private, public, and non-profit art spaces. My work is held in numerous private and corporate collections, including Microsoft and Credit Suisse. Grants and non-profit support have formed a crucial spine to my practice over the years, and include the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Puffin Foundation, and George Sugarman Foundation Grants.

Artist residencies have also formed a critical part of my practice. I find the displacement and fresh context and information derived from residencies tremendously influential and helpful to moving forward as an artist. I’ve had the privilege to work in residence at the Bogliasco Foundation in Liguria, Italy; Cill Rialaig in Ireland; MARC in Knislinge, Sweden; Blue Mountain Center in NY State, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

In addition to my art/public art practice, I am a proud member of New York City’s Local 829, the Scenic Painters Union, and have painted sets for many TV shows and films, most recently ‘Kiss of A Spider Woman’, and ‘Office Romance’, starring Jennifer Lopez. The technical rigor, and collaborative aspects of this work challenge and excite me, and are an important component of my total creative practice. In addition to honing and refining my technical skills as a painter, Union work provides a financial stability that has proven essential against the market volatility, and erratic commerical nature of the art industry.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Shortly after the 2016 election, I opened a solo show of paintings as part of the BRIC Biennial in Brooklyn. I became quite despondent after this show. A;though the mixed-media works spoke to politics, they were far too oblique and opaque in their messaging. I resolved to find a more public way of working that directly engaged political and social questions that were swirling at the time, and to find a way to work more publicly and transparently. After some amount of research and field study, I began intervening in NYC subway advertisements with political and social messaging that I felt was either being left out, marginalized, or obfuscated by the corporate media. This project, titled ‘Interruptions’, began in summer 2017 and continues to this day, with the most recent interventions speaking to the horrific genocide in Gaza the United States is funding. It has evolved from working on paper advertisements to intervening in the digital ad displays all over the city. Through this project I pivoted towards a more overtly political, conversational, ephemeral way of working and connecting with an audience.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

I received an email once from someone claiming to be an Italian curator, who was working with an Italian shoe company, and wanted to commission me to design a shoe for their company. I’m on a lot of email and arts marketing lists and periodically get whacky fishing emails, and I assumed this was one of them. I blew it off. But about 2 weeks later I thought better of it and figured I’d call her bluff and see what might happen. It turned out to be a real opportunity, and I flew to Italy to make a site-specific installation with shoes and designed a shoe. While I was there I met an art dealer who was forming a gallery, and he invited me to join as the first American artist, and offered me a solo exhibition after reviewing some catalogs of my work I had brought along. A terrific opportunity in the guise of a random, eccentric email!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jonathanallen.org
• Instagram: @jonathanallenstudio

Image Credits

Maria Baranova