Steven Allan’s paintings look almost like woodcut prints, with a graphic and dramatic quality of line. Indeed, often centred around uncanny ‘Banana’ characters, his works have a distinctive black humour that can be traced back to the satirically charged work of 18th-century engravers. Dancing around a kitchen in We’re All In This Together – a rueful allusion to contemporary politics – the bananas are absurdly solemn, cheered on by a stopwatch that gleefully awaits their demise. ‘Like Hogarth,’ says Allan, ‘I am interested in the tragicomedy aspect of humanity. I want to depict real life situations but obscure and twist them around to both bend and underline their meanings … I don’t tend to dwell on why I paint this, or why I paint that, but if pushed for an answer I guess I identify in some way with these kind of ridiculous objects. I look at a banana in the fruit bowl, browning, overripe. It’s such a sad image to me – the last banana that no one has gotten round to eating – destined for the bin. It can say a lot about where your head’s at to be painting a version of yourself into such an object.’
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