Replete with full-color plates and details of her meticulous, luminous paintings, the first monograph of Los Angeles-based contemporary artist Theodora Allen shines a light on her work and exhibitions of the last eight years. 

Accompanying Allen's exhibition at Kunsthal Aarhus in Denmark, the catalog brings a magnifying glass to the artist’s symbolic lexicon—serpents, moths, hourglasses, wildfires, hallucinogenic plants, and the cosmos—as windows into timeless inner worlds. Curator and author Stephanie Cristello alternates between fictional texts and critical essays, to look at the way these emblems and allegories remain generative. Connecting specific moments from ancient Greek mythology, medieval psychology, Fin de Siècle Europe, and the zeitgeist of 1960s California, Saturnine offers meditations on the kaleidoscope of references that find their footing in Allen’s paintings, and their powerful resonance in our contemporary moment.

A wealth of reference images alongside rigorous criticism make this an insightful and welcome monograph on one of today's most sought-after young artists. 

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Theodora Allen: Saturnine at Kunsthal Aarhus, Denmark May 14–July 18, 2021. 

Written by Stephanie Cristello.
Designed by Ashley Ryann, JNL Graphic Design. 
With support from Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo, and Kasmin, New York.

Physical description:
Hardcover; 215 pages
Geneva: Motto Books, 2021
ISBN: 978-2-940672-11-0
6 3/4 x 9 1/2 inches