Ceri Allen studied Fine Art Painting at City & Guilds School of Art, London She has exhibited widely and is a longstanding member of the Lake Artists Society. She exhibits with The Castlegate House Gallery, Cockermouth. Her work is represented in public and private collections in the UK and USA Collections include, Tullie House, Carlisle, St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. She has been selected for Artist Residencies at the University of Cumbria, Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Kronstadt, St Petersburg with the NCCA, Demi-paradise production, Lancaster Castle and with Hypha Studio’s in Penrith Commissions include a painting for the historic ‘Oxford Almanack’ (2017 edition), several works for Corpus Christi College, a portrait of novelist Margaret Forster and Lord Inglewood’s MEP rally including Lord and Lady Whitelaw. She was shortlisted for inclusion in the New Lights Art Prize Exhibition 2020 and 2023. ‘I am a figurative painter and work primarily in oil on canvas. Currently my main interest is in representing people in an urban environment’. My paintings are composed of elements from memory, sketches and/or photographs. The composition is important – the division of pictorial space and the way this can be used to convey certain moods. I am drawn to the effect of light on surface and repeat patterns and shapes’.