Through the use of childlike imagery, artist Gemma Holzer reflects upon the universal emergence into adulthood and the interpersonal relationships we hold with one another. Her work reveals the collective loneliness that resonates in our post digital age.

Gemma makes large scale paintings that use brightly colored acrylic and oil on canvas. The paintings have a vibrant and flat quality that mimic the online realm. Her art is a transposition of digital drawings into physical painting. Flat, and profoundly still, the images exist as vacuums of time. These overly saturated scenes suggest memories of youth.Her work explores themes concerning interpersonal relationships, loneliness and reality, through the use of childlike imagery. The paintings are an escape from reality; the intention being to take the viewer into a make-believe virtual world.Gemma’s work revolves around a fetus-like character named PinkBoy, who inhabits worlds appropriated from existing cartoon imagery. PinkBoy is a self-portrait; a personal avatar; a depiction of childhood. He is placed within the artificial worlds to consider issues around being human in today’s age.