Like an ecologist in the field of biology who studies the relations of living organisms to one another and their surroundings, Allen carefully considers the relations of the inherent qualities of her medium to the visual and tactile characteristics of the support, ground, the brush, and the multiple influences of the artist's hand. The small things that are often taken for granted by painters-for example, a single stroke's transition from its initial loaded-brush state to when the paint runs out-are, for Allen, part of a deep ecosystem of possibilities, breeding and evolving formalistic problems and aesthetic issues. Through loosely painted grid structures, she deliberately and intuitively explores the literal anatomy of painting at its most fundamental level-an unadorned strategy that whispers the intellectual and aesthetic complexities of the activity of painting.