Billy Allen
Billy Allen’s work has many layers and inspirations. On the one hand, it is about performing gender roles, particularly femininity, through a process of masquerade and noir-inspired drama. Billy likes to collaborate with models, stylists and other creatives to produce absurdist tableaux featuring highly textured imagery. Location and spirit of place is also central to his process.
Recently, for example, he has been shooting the majority of his project in Budapest, Hungary. During an exchange semester he undertook in the spring of 2024, he made the kind of creative connections that have enabled him to collaborate effectively with different individuals. Creating fictional narratives from observations in everyday life is what stimulates him; identifying curiosities in the world that can be materialised into absurd creations through the lens.
His background in construction has dovetailed well with a passion for the fashion idiom and led to him becoming a visual builder, using objects and unconventional materials for styling and texture. Billy likes to find unconventional beauty in the ridiculous by creating staged fantasies. His imagery employs recurring signifiers like hair, chairs, boxes and footwear as a means of making the everyday extraordinary.
Find more of Billy’s work below: