Nicole Allen | From the ground up
April 11 – 25

Reception: April 11, 3–5 pm
RSVP your attendance to responses@wallspacegallery.ca

Presales are open Saturday, April 4 @ 10 am, online, in-person and via phone at 613-729-0003. If you would like to preview an artwork before collecting it, please contact the gallery at info@wallspacegallery.ca

Wall Space Gallery is proud to present From the ground up by Ottawa painter Nicole Allen. This exhibition reflects both a physical and emotional journey toward renewal and serves as a meditation on growth, resilience, and the transformative power of starting anew. Through her richly layered florals and botanical imagery, Allen explores the delicate interplay between vulnerability and strength, much like blossoms reaching toward the light after a long winter.

In this body of work, the garden becomes both subject and metaphor. Petals, stems, and leaves embody how life persists, reshapes, and ultimately flourishes even after upheaval. These paintings are rooted in personal experience, marking a year of profound transition that included a relocation from Ottawa to New York with her husband and the loss of her parents. These parallel narratives of disruption and adjustment have infused the work with deep tenderness, quiet defiance, and intuitive energy that is at once grounded and uplifting.

Like the flowers she paints, the act of rebuilding becomes a site of hope. Each composition reveals how form, colour, and mark-making can express the tension between fragility and resilience. Growth leans into light, lines push outward from the canvas, and colour blooms with an optimism that transcends loss. In From the ground up, Allen invites viewers to witness a cycle of disintegration and regeneration, capturing the very essence of finding beauty and meaning in new beginnings.

Curator
Haruka Toyoda

Featured work:
Tangled Intentions, Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
Remember the beauty, Acrylic and mixed media on canvas