Artist Loie Hollowell, speaking from her studio in Queens, New York, describes the timing of her latest exhibition as 'magical.' Titled Overview Effect, the show coincides with the Artemis II moon mission, a coincidence Hollowell finds fitting given the term's origin—used by astronauts to describe the awe of seeing Earth from space. 'We're having so many problems here,' she remarks, referencing earthly troubles.
The Overview Effect Exhibition
The exhibition, currently at London's Pace Gallery, features large-scale canvases with twin concave and convex sculpted circles. If folded vertically, the halves align perfectly. The works radiate outward in rings of vibrant, soothing color, continuing Hollowell's exploration of pregnancy and birth through abstraction. Her earlier Split Orb paintings and Dilation Stage pastel drawings responded to her son's difficult hospital birth. Overview Effect reflects her daughter's easier arrival: a 'cosmic' home birth she found empowering.
From Diagram to Internal Experience
Hollowell explains that works from her first birth were more diagrammatic, like self-portraits: 'It's me from the outside looking at a pregnant body.' The second birth was more internal, and she was more present. A self-described 'sci-fi nerd,' she turned to space imagery to capture the out-of-body experience during labor. 'There was a moment between contractions where the pain was so deep I was probably going to pass out. I came above myself. Sitting up, I could look down and see my daughter's head coming out. Somehow the vision from above was also my head.' This experience inspired the twin circles in her compositions, which are so abstract their meaning isn't obvious without context.
Influences and Artistic Journey
Hollowell, born in 1983 and raised in Woodland, California, grew up with a painter father and a seamstress and cartoonist mother. Her mother, who had four children, made childbirth sound easy—'Oh, I popped them out. Go and pop them out!'—but Hollowell found it difficult. 'It's so hard,' she says. She cites American modernists like Georgia O'Keeffe, Louise Bourgeois, and Luchita Hurtado's birth paintings as major influences. Instagram photos of home births and Ina May Gaskin's childbirth book also informed her work. 'It's funny because all the pictures are kind of symmetrical—legs spread, vagina in the center. That was the compositional structure I was already doing.'
Speaking Openly About the Body
Hollowell notes that as collectors, especially male ones, have grown more comfortable with her imagery, she can speak more openly about her inspirations. Early in her career, she didn't discuss how an abortion influenced some works. 'With the help of female curators putting me into museum shows, I've been able to highlight that original inspiration.' She still wrestles with the tension between abstraction and figuration, especially since 'abstraction sells.' Her pastel drawings more explicitly depict vulvas and breasts, with titles like Happy Vagina, Boob Wheel, and The Let Down. She also makes body casts and collaborates with her children on paintings. 'I feel optimistic that the constructed barrier between the physical and the abstract can be dismantled.'
Hormones and Artistic Evolution
Reflecting on her early work, Hollowell says, 'I was super horny. I'd think about sex all the time.' Now, perimenopause has shifted her perspective. 'I feel so in control, in a way that I haven't felt in the past. The art will change again. My favorite artists really blossomed in their 50s and 60s, and I can see why.' She praises Louise Bourgeois's shapeshifting practice and notes that times are changing. 'I don't know if I could have made this work 20 years ago. It would have been really rare to be able to do that and be a mother.'
Loie Hollowell: Overview Effect is at Pace Gallery, London, until 23 May.
