I grew up in Vermont, went to Vassar College, and started teaching in the Philadelphia area in 1964. I married another teacher, moved to Mt Airy, stayed home with two children for seven years, and went back to teaching in the early 1970s. I taught middle and upper school English at Springside School in Chestnut Hill until retirement in 2006. Several years later I upgraded from a point and shoot camera to a Nikon SLR and started taking lessons at Basho and PPAC. Trees, flowers, landscapes, family until 2014 when I transformed a series of photos of a performance artist into silk hangings. Photography began to transform me, and during the pandemic I turned the camera on myself and discovered myself as an artist.
Sara is exploring ways of illustrating the naturally aging body with its creases, folds, and rough textures, its bumps and lines and spots. INSCAPE: Landscape of the Self, a solo show at DaVinci Art Alliance in 2022, a series of self-portraits that move from black and white to color images. Inscape plays with “landscape” and “in” or “interior” to suggest emotions arising from from the exploration of the physical nature of the aging body. In FRAGMENTS, a solo show at Abington Art Center in 2023, she seeks to make the ordinary body strange. The parts are familiar: the neck, the brow, the back, the fingers and hands, the legs and feet, the torso from the side or the back. The images are playful, unexpected, even strange. She hopes the images encourage the viewer to look anew at what is beautiful and fascinating about the human body.
1964 Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY
BA History
1987 Middlebury College, Breadloaf School of English
MA English
Northwest Village Network
Center on the Hill, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, PA, 2019
2023
Sara Allen Fragments, Fall Solo Series, Abington Art Center, Jenkintown, PA
2022
Inscape: Landscape of the Self, DaVinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
2024
InLiquid Toasts 25, Off the Wall Gallery at Dirty Franks, Philadelphia, PA
The World We Live In, Mount Airy Art Garage, Philadelphia, PA
The Naked Show, InLiquid Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2023
The Artists of NW Philly, No Name Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Seven Photographers: Seven Ways of Looking at the World, Mt Airy Art Garage, Philadelphia, PA
Featuring: Sara Allen, Charles Andaloro, Reed Gustow, Dove Nasir, Claire Robinson, Jill Galoway Sherman, and Eileen Talanian.
In 2020, this group of photographers, forced into isolation, turned to Zoom to continue their critique class. This show celebrates 3 years of growing and developing as photographers and artists.
New Now VI, InLiquid Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
In Search of Something More, DaVinci Art Alliance Member Show, Philadelphia, PA
2022
Aging as Art: A Juried Photography Show, Council on Aging - Southern California, 2022
PhotoEx 2022, Juried Photography Exhibit, Media Arts Council, Media, PA
Family Room, DaVinci Art Alliance Members Invitational, Philadelphia, PA
The Perfect Age-Reflections on the Passage of Time, A National Juried Exhibition Hera Gallery, Wakefield, RI
2020 - 2021
Just Imagine Annual Art Show, Abington Arts Center, Abington, PA
2014
A Body in 30th Street Station: Eiko Otake, Mt Airy Art Garage Member Show Philadelphia, PA
2023
Mt. Airy Art Garage Members Show, Philadelphia, PA
2022
Through the Lens, Mt Airy Art Garage Member Show, Philadelphia, PA
Lifeblood, Mt. Airy Art Garage Member Show, Philadelphia, PA
2021
The Art of Photography, Mt Airy Art Garage Member Show, Philadelphia, PA
PPAC/TILT Member Shows, tiltinstitute.org, 2014 - 2019, 2021, 2022
Relative: Seeing Ourselves/Seeing Others, SXSE Center for Photography Gallery, Molena, GA
2023
Emptiness, Exhibizone 2022, International Online Group Exhibition
Artistonish, Magazine 30th Issue (Online and Print)
Figures and Faces, Las Laguna Gallery, Juried Online Exhibition
2022
Human Faces and Features Las Laguna Gallery - Juried Online Exhibition
Women in Art, Las Laguna Gallery, Juried Online Exhibition
Femina [Woman], Gallerium Art Exhibitions & The Book of Arts Publication (Exhibition and Publication)
The Perfect Age-Reflections on the Passage of Time, Hera Gallery, Hera Educational Foundation, Wakefield, RI
LensCulture, Competition Gallery Portraits Award
