Since graduating from the Nova Scotia College of Art (1967), Allan has had a long award-wininng career in the visual arts both as a practicing artist and as director of Galleries across Canada including Halifax (Anna Leonowen Gallery), Lethbridge (Southern Alberta Art Gallery), Saskatoon (Mendel Art Gallery) and Toronto (Art Metropole and Power Plant).
He has exhibited across Canada and Europe and is the subject of a 25 year survey at Confederation Centre Art Gallery and Museum in 2008.
In 1993, Allan travelled to Somalia to document the role of Canadian soldiers as part of a humanitarian aid mission. His work from that six-day visit became the bases of Somalia Yellow, a 19 minute documentary. This visit coincided with the torture and death of Shidane Arone, a Somali teenager, and the attempted suicide of master Corporal Clayton Matchee. Profoundly effected by his experience as a war artist, Allan again joined the Canadian Forces Artist Program in 2002 and gathered material in Kandahar, Afghanaston which became the basis of Double Bind.