Jonah Allen

Jonah Allen is a fine artist working in photography. Among his chief concerns are the aesthetics of Earth’s waterways and their relationship to humans. His work focuses on the natural environment from both an eye level and aerial perspective. Allen uses digital photographic techniques to reflect on natural as well as human altered landscapes.

Allen was born in 1993 in Atlanta, Georgia and currently works in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. He received his Minor in Fine Arts with an emphasis in photography and BBA in Marketing from the University of Georgia in 2016. In the last year, Allen has exhibited work at the Pensacola Museum of Art, Gardner Colby Gallery in Naples, Florida, and Windsor Fine Art in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Early exposure to surfing and the power of the ocean formulated the development of his photographic work. Yet, Allen grew up landlocked. For 23 years, he longed to live by the sea. This separation from the ocean further drove his curiosity and obsession with water. In 2017, he embarked on a journey camping around the world, chasing waves, and light in Central America, South America, Europe, and Asia. He returned to the Gulf Coast in early 2018 – the place that first inspired his love for the sea.

Since then, he has amassed a substantial portfolio of work surrounding the watercourses of the Gulf. Constantly at play in Jonah Allen’s photographs is the ephemeral relationship between water and light. His deep knowledge of the ocean allows him to capture intimate moments with energy in one of its rawest forms. Allen’s most recent work, “Receded Time,” is a series of images that explores sand’s ability to show the passage of time. On the surface, this collection is based on the allure of natural fractal phenomenon in nature. But, sand is a medium that leaves a visual trace of the element that altered it. Whether it’s weathered, eroded, or deposited, there is evidence of what has taken place around the sand. Thus, the history of things is available in a single moment, something Allen’s strives to achieve in every image.

Allen is currently working on a long term photographic project which examines the relationship the waterways of the Gulf Coast of America. This work will eventually take form as a photobook as well as a traveling exhibition.