STANCE is pleased to present Intimate Terms, the Swedish debut of Los Angeles–based artist Theodora Allen. Over the past decade, Allen has developed a distinct visual lexicon, deeply attuned to the symbolic power of images and their archetypal cycles of return, transformation, and persistence. The works in Intimate Terms present a suite of recent paintings that reflect the artist’s sustained engagement with a process-based method of painting that has developed into a defining and generative part of her painting practice—a strategy for merging image and surface, subject and action. At the core of each painting on view is an object or life form caught in a state of transformation, either undergoing change or suspended in the act of becoming. Representations of forms associated with impenetrability—classical armor, stone walls, metal barriers—are rendered with unexpected softness and translucency. These symbols of defense give way to signs of nascent renewal: germinating seeds, recently emerged butterflies, and the ideogram of a heart. Each painting carries an oracular charge, revealing shared emotional truths while resonating with the ecological and social urgencies of our time. Working on gessoed linen, Allen builds her compositions through layered application and removal of oil paint, often in a restrained palette of jewel- toned blues and cool grays. This labor-intensive process of accumulation, sedimentation, and subtraction, shapes light and shadow through acts of erasure and retention, preserving areas of luminosity, while dimming others. The result is a shimmering, porous threshold between the physical and the felt, the visible and the imagined. Across her oeuvre, and especially in recent works, a sense of personal and collective vulnerability unfolds, particularly the tension between nature and culture. Armor, engineered to protect, is rendered as a fragile encasement; simultaneously psychological and physical. Pierced veils of constructed reality now reimagined as permeable membranes. In Shield (Emerge) I-II, both 2025, the classical icons serve as portal windows to a scene of metamorphosis just beyond—a butterfly dangling from a chrysalis. A recurrent theme in Allen’s work is the tenacity of the natural world, and its cycles of growth, decay, and renewal unfolding beyond or despite humanity. In Wildfire No.7 , 2025, flames consume a fragment of architecture, confronting the illusion of permanence. Human structures collapse, while nature clears the way for regeneration—renewal through destruction. Sharing visual affinities with seekers from Romantic and Theosophical movements: William Blake, Hilma af Klint, and Caspar David Friedrich, who explored themes of the sublime and metaphysical—Allen’s work remains rooted in a secular subjectivity. Her symbolic forms consider nature’s cycles of creation and destruction, and the deeply human desire to leave something lasting. This vision finds powerful expression in The Starry Vault (Gemination) I-III, 2023, a tripartite series in which magnified seeds appear suspended in a celestial blue field, hovering between dormancy and emergence. Centered within a border that resembles the uniform regularity and sheen of die-cut metal, the scene resembles an observation chamber. Through a portal window, the viewer glimpses stars, particles, and budding matter that hum with latent energy—poised on the edge of transformation.
Allen’s paintings invite the viewer to bring their own meanings, memories, and cultural references. Within this ambiguity lies an invitation to engage with the mystery of creation itself, hinting at the possibility that our minds and the cosmos are more connected than we assume. Ultimately, nature moves freely through fractured monuments and thresholds. What was once shielded falls away—offering the promise of nature’s quiet regenerative return.
CURATED BY ELISA CAROLLO
Stance Gallery is pleased to present Intimate Terms, the Swedish debut of Los Angeles–based artist Theodora Allen. Over the past decade, Allen has developed a distinct visual lexicon, deeply attuned to the symbolic power of images and their archetypal cycles of return, transformation, and persistence. The works in Intimate Terms present a suite of recent paintings that reflect the artist’s sustained engagement with a process-based method of painting that has developed into a defining and generative part of her painting practice—a strategy for merging image and surface, subject and action. At the core of each painting is an object or life form caught in a state of transformation, either undergoing change or suspended in the act of becoming. Revealing shared emotional truths while resonating with the ecological and social urgencies of our time, the paintings invite the viewer to bring their own meanings, memories, and cultural references. Within this ambiguity lies an invitation to engage with the mystery of creation itself, hinting at the possibility that our minds and the cosmos are more connected than we assume.
Theodora Allen (b.1985, Los Angeles, CA) holds an MFA in painting from the University of California, Los Angeles, CA, a BFA from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA, and has completed a residency at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME. Recent solo exhibitions include Kasmin, New York (2025), Huset for Kunst & Design, Holstebro, Denmark (2023); Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2022) Driehaus Museum, Chicago, IL (2022); and the Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark (2021).