Artist Journey Allen. Visual Artist. Muralist. Cultural Practitioner. Healing-Centered Educator.
Artist Mission: To create art that restores, uplifts, and connects. Through muralism, storytelling, mentorship, and immersive creative practice, Journey Allen cultivates spaces where imagination becomes a pathway toward healing, reflection, empowerment, and community transformation.
Artist Vision: Journey Allen envisions creative spaces where people of all walks of life are invited to remember their humanity, honor their stories, and participate in shaping more compassionate and connected communities. Her work imagines a future where art functions not only as expression, but as ceremony, restoration, and collective liberation.
Select Mural Works
"Fresh Food is Liberation"
New Orleans East Business Complex, 2020
Completed with Living School New Orleans Art students and community members, this project was piloted in an effort to address the lack of fresh and healthy food options available to New Orleans East Residents.
"Innocent Until Proven Guilty: Our Mothers are not Inmates
Mural Installation Commissioned by Orleans Parish Prison Reform Coalition, 2021
In collaboration with Carpenter, Ross Harmon and Living School Art Students, this project was created to give voice to ending cash bail. It captures the true story of a mother who encountered an incident during Mardi Gras season that ultimately swallows her family into the cycle of recidivism as she is jailed. Unable to pay bail, she leaves her teenaged son and young daughter to fend for themselves.
"Colors of Our Culture"
New Orleans East Public Library, 2022
As the Lead Artist for the Young Artist Movement Program, Journey worked with youth artist to develop and execute the design for the New Orleans East Beautification Project led by Arts New Orleans and the New Orleans Business Alliance.
"Sacred Crowns:
The Crown Act Mural"
Commissioned by Dove, Joy Collective, and
Arts New Orleans, 2022
This mural celebrates "The Crown Act" which seeks to combat discrimination in the classroom and workplace in regards to hairstyles worn by Black women and men, boys and girls.
"My Beautiful Dream for New Orleans"
Juvenile Justice Intervention Center (JJIC), 2022
Located within the visitation room at the Juvenile Justice Intervention Center, this project engaged 12 beautiful youth who were detained at the facility. Through this endeavor students explored the process of mural making for the first time and contributed to both the designing and painting of the project.
"A Place to Rest and Dream"
Hotel Hope: A Mother's and Children's Housing Facility, 2022-23
This campus was beautified with two inspiring murals and vibrant colors with the intention of welcoming residents to the facility and encouraging them to dream. In 2023, a Candy Land inspired path was painted by teens artists of Spectrum Arts NOLA School of Visual Arts & Entrepreneurship, a hybrid-high school-homeschool platform founded and led by Journey Allen.
"From Graveyards To Gardens"
Juvenile Justice Intervention Center, 2023
In partnership with Spectrum Arts NOLA and Arts New Orleans' Young Artist Movement Program, this mural was led by the talented youth detained at the Juvenile Justice Intervention Center who developed and installed the mural along the transitional corridor with the guidance of Journey Allen. The mural reflects the students perspective of who they once were and who they intend to become.
'Sacred Ones"
Juvenile Justice Intervention Center, 2024
Supported by the Platforms Fund, this intentional mural-making journey invited youth detained at the Juvenile Justice Intervention Center to explore mindfulness and sacred expression through art. Grounded in meditation practices inspired by peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh, and influenced by Kehinde Wiley’s Archeology of Silence, Jean Lacy’s stained glass, and Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, participants transformed their chapel and community space with imagery reflecting their personal interpretations of the sacred.
