Arts Bank

North East artist Anji Allen started drawing, painting and designing when she was a small child. She wanted to pursue a career in art but was discouraged from doing so. Many years later, Anji began creating large papier mache pots which she sold in galleries in London and the North East of England. She went on to work free-lance in the greeting card industry while also using her designs on many other products, which sold all over the world.

Four or five years ago, Anji began drawing a few buildings in her home town of Morpeth and putting them on to greeting cards. New designs from all over the area closely followed and Anji is now well known in Newcastle and Northumberland for her bright and quirky designs of buildings and icons. Passionate about drawing buildings, Anji's recent work looks at some of the less observed urban streets that exist alongside the more obvious and well known buildings.

Much of Anji's work has been made with gouache and pen and some of her more recent works are made using mixed media on canvas. Apart from buildings, her inspiration comes from everything and eveyrbody around her. When she draws a building she thinks about what is going on inside that building - both now and in the past and in the future; who lives there? What do they do? How do they live?