Alone Together

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. ‘Alone Together’ reveals the collective loneliness that resonates in this surreal post digital existence.

The artists’ autobiographical character PinkBoy is the subject of most of her paintings. The fetus-like creature inhabits Holzer’s illusory realities: these are worlds in which one can escape that technically derive from digital drawings. Flat, and profoundly still, the images exist as vacuums of time. A sense of the present fails to exist; yet within the isolate universe, PinkBoy finds solace in an alike companion. We witness their relationship at a distance. Our connectivity to them is diluted through the medium of paint; similarly, in reality relationships are diluted through the operation of the digital realm.

Much like her rendering of digital imagery into paint, Holzer is successful in her translation of a computerised aesthetic into human emotion. Despite the abstract and dilute content of the paintings, Holzer’s titles are kind in their linguistic offering. One can also grasp the emotional energy of each painting despite PinkBoy’s stoic composure. These subtleties and abstractions allow for the viewer to project their own feeling onto the artwork, and take from it what they understand to be true of life and relationships.

Although without a rigid chronology, the paintings in this exhibition can be read in a storybook like fashion. One can witness the development of PinkBoy’s relationship to his surroundings and his companion BlueBoy. We can make assumptions upon their ambiguous connection, yet clear is the purity and child-like innocence of their union.