1936-2018 → Gary Pembroke Allen was a multidisciplinary artist whose creative practice spanned painting, illustration, animation, experimental film, and art direction. His work reflected a deep understanding of composition, atmosphere, and visual storytelling. He approached both art and film with sensitivity to space, light, and emotional tone. Collaboration was central to his practice, and he thrived in creative communities where art, music, and storytelling intersected.
Allen was a third-generation Californian artist, educator, and art director. He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute under Richard Diebenkorn and completed an MFA at San Francisco State University. Early in his career, he worked as an illustrator and animator at Walt Disney Animation Studios before embarking on a long teaching career as a Professor of Art at San Francisco City College, where he shared his passion for painting, illustration, art history, and experimental filmmaking with generations of students.
In 1986, Allen relocated to Vancouver, BC, where he began a second career in the film and television industry. Over the next decades, he became a respected art director in “Hollywood North,” working on numerous Vancouver-based productions. He was especially known for his work on The X-Files (for which he won an Emmy Award in 1997), as well as films including Housekeeping, Knight Moves, Eye See You, Lone Hero, and Cousins. He died at home in Vancouver at the age of 82.
About the Artwork:
Gary Pembroke Allen. Abstract, 83. Watercolour. 1983.
This abstract watercolour appears to explore atmosphere, movement, and spatial ambiguity. Large passages of diluted blue and turqoise suggest the paint was applied to wet paper, allowing pigments to bloom, feather and diffuse organically.
Fine graphite or ink lines cut across the composition, which contrast with the fluid washes, introducing structure. The use of negative space enhances the lightness and keeps the work from becoming overly saturated. The diffused edges and flowing pigments create movement. Perhaps a sense of passing weather – mist, tides or drifting clouds. The work feels momentary.
Overall, the piece demonstrates a sensitive handling of watercolour’s inherent unpredictability. Allen appears less concerned with depiction and more with atmosphere, rhythm, and the poetic potential of fluid paint interacting with paper.
For all you deep art divers out there.
More on Richard Diebenkorn.
East of Borneo Article on the rise and fall of the San Francisco Art Institute.
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