Catherine’s work explores themes of wonder and play through the magical transformations of children’s drawings and experimentations with bubbles and balloons.

In her practice, Catherine experiments with themes of growth and development both conceptually and technically, exploring the dialogue between art and biology. Her current body of work looks at how air affects growth with an examination of how objects and people can be metaphorical and physically inflated.

Catherine predominately uses electrofoming, a method for growing layers of metal or “skin” are grown over an original wax substrate in an electrochemical solution to create her work. The wax is removed once the metal layer reaches the appropriate thickness allowing her to create organic hollow metal forms that could not be achieved with any other method. She constructs jewellery pieces that are a marriage between art and science-making them feel real and alive.

Catherine Allen has a BSc from Dalhousie University (1995), Jewellery Arts Diploma (2000), George Brown College, Toronto, ON and an MFA from NSCAD University (2007). She is passionate about sharing the transformative experience of art and making and has taught both community arts courses as well as University level jewellery courses at OCAD (Toronto, ON) and at NSCAD University (Halifax, NS).