Jahdiel Allen

Illustrator and Graphic Designer, Jahdiel Allen lives and works in Kingston, Jamaica. Having always been fairy reticent, Jahdiel Allen, in their childhood found the idea of creative expression fascinating. The interest was cultivated during their teenage years and expanded with their pursuit of a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts in Visual Communication. The concept of Digital Illustration and Graphic Design, as areas of focus, was foreign to Allen prior to attending the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, however their continued practice allowed for an integration of illustration and design as well as a familiarizing with them as independent areas of visual communication.
Allen’s work for the past few years housed creative projects mainly consisting of custom designs and commissions. Jahdiel Allen has explored the fields of storytelling through comic composition in addition to fictional character illustration. Their most recent works give insight into Queer black representation highlighting contexts of identity, orientation, romancticism and Love.

Artist Statement
The art I produce is a representation of my development as both an individual and an artist. In the initial stages of my practice, my work featured landscape paintings done in acrylic and/or oil paint. Since then, my art has been heavily influenced by a processing and response to the feelings and emotions of my experiences or a particular state of mind. Art serves as the most effective form of self-expression and overcoming consistent issues related to my psychological health. I use colour and composition as elemented and symbolic representation of topics that are typically deemed political or controversial, and a few are based in cultural and societal influences. The sensitivity surrounding my art is parallel to the sensitivity of my vulnerability in identification as a queer, non-binary Jamaican artist. My work is produced to create a unique visual effect and to communicate through this. It is intended for the viewer to feel, provoking some form of thought regardless of whether the context is agreed with or not.