PAMELLA ALLEN CREATIVE

Xaymaca: From Mountains to Sea / Finding Mother in the Motherland 

 Mixed Media Earthworks on Canvas

© Pamela Allen 2026

Pamela Allen’s new series of mixed media earthworks marks a return to her birthplace, Jamaica—Xaymaca, “Land of Wood and Water.” Through shells, feathers, coral, bamboo, handmade papers, and botanical prints, Allen layers artifacts gathered from coastlines and mountains into abstract reliefs that speak to memory, lineage, and the cyclical rhythms of life. These works embody her search for connection to her late mother and ancestral knowledge lost to time, while honoring the resilience and mystic harmony of Jamaica’s lands and people. Flowing like rivers from mountains to sea, the series resonates with the natural poetry of place and identity.

Portraits, Mandalas & Hand Made Paperworks

Portraits, Mandalas & Hand Made Paperworks  

Mixed Media Paintings & Deconstructed Drawings by Pamela Allen

Everything begins with the first lines. My portraits and nature studies emerge from graphite drawings on rice paper, later deconstructed and re‑layered into new compositions. Acrylic, parchment, encaustic, sand, and mixed media interact with chance and intention to reveal fresh windows into humanity.

The mandalas draw on ritual and storytelling traditions across cultures. Using artifacts, archetypal images, written word, and earth elements, I create landscapes grounded in the mystic of nature. These works seek a place of “one‑ness,” offering viewers inspired peace and meditation through layered form and texture.

EARTHWORKS

Earthworks as Living Archives

Pamela Allen’s earthworks unfold as a continuum of storytelling through nature’s remnants, each installation a meditation on place, memory, and resilience. Her practice—spanning on‑site installations, sculptural reliefs, mandalas, and mixed media canvases—honors the natural world as a living archive, where shells, stones, driftwood, handmade papers, and botanical prints embody cycles of life, death, and renewal.

In 2021, during her residency at Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio, Allen created What the Trees Gave Me, a 25‑foot installation of shells, quartz, reeds, moss, and fallen branches. This work honored the Shinnecock landscape and its people, transforming natural artifacts into a portrait of place. The following year, she collaborated with Denise Silva‑Dennis on Three Hundred Million Years at Shinnecock Bay, a 20‑foot circle of horseshoe crab skins and feathers. Returned to the tide at high water, the installation embodied continuity and reverence for ancient cycles.

In 2023, Allen built Finding Center / Nature Speaks History at Brooklyn’s Old Stone House. This 25‑foot living earthwork incorporated oyster shells, quartz, willow, recycled wood chips, ancient ferns, and solar lights. Dictated by the site’s layered histories, it referenced Lenape reliance on waterways, honored enslaved souls, and created habitat for endangered species. A community poem inscribed on quartz stones tied past and present together.

Her Mixed Media Mandala Reliefs in Jamaica layered quartz sand, seeds, children’s shoes, stone, and silkscreen prints of dragonflies. These works spoke of healing waters, earth, and self,

reconnecting with maternal ancestry through memory and mystic nature.

For the finale of Sarah Cameron Sunde’s 36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea in 2023, Allen created What the Sea Gave Us, a 7‑foot mandala at Hallet’s Cove. Built from stone, driftwood, shells, textile, and glass, its center held “holy water” collected by Sunde from all tidal stand sites. Community words inscribed within reflected participants’ relationship with the sea, uniting cycles of land, tide, and humanity.

Together, these works form a living archive—earthworks that honor landscapes, embody ancestral memory, and invite viewers into spaces of meditation where nature’s mystic flows between mountains and sea.

The Language of Listening Image & Prose By Pamella Allen