The Australian landscape has always been a source of inspiration for Allman, who spent a number of years exploring both rural and outback Australia piloting Cessna aircraft and hiking on foot. This new series of work is painted from memory, capturing the alluring beauty and serenity of the landscape and blurring the perspective of sky and ground. Through these works Allman recalls the intensity of the landscape grabbing her by the throat, searing the flesh and eyes – “to breathe was to burn”. Each work is saturated in a vibrant veil, an embodiment of the harsh effects extreme heat and blinding glare has on the mind, body and psyche. Navigating these environments is an all encapsulating full body experience, your mind wanders and your body burns.

In parallel to the individual surviving within these extreme landscapes, Allman appreciates the land itself as an interconnected and complex living, breathing and sensitive organism; able to sustain life, to evolve, to decay and to heal. As much as the individual must muster to survive these harsh conditions the land too considers its own survival against the extremities of human intervention.

The vivid saturation of these works shout out for attention, raising an urgent call to action for greater compassion for the land which provides us with each and every breath. The saturated veil also expresses our shared existence and the challenges of unsustainable rising temperature, air pollution, devastating bushfires, erosion of fertile soil, salinity levels, biodiversity decay and water scarcity. The land is struggling to breathe. We feel the furnace. We fuel the furnace. We both breathe. If we don’t act, we both burn.