Lisa Holden//

//Holden billboards pixellation of her edges and other digital artifacts, which contrast sharply with the layers of paint she’s applied, in her succession of layered rephotographing to achieve her final result. Thus, she celebrates the artificiality of the digital medium as the new techno-brushstroke. It seems an obvious development, but it took creative courage to bring it off, given the prevailing Photoshop ideology of concealing the process and imitating analogue film, if not ‘reality’.//

Joel Simpson, Artshub, 2008

//European artist Lisa Holden’s work has been compared to that of such innovative and influential artists as Cindy Sherman, Pipilotti Rist and Tracey Moffat. But Holden’s imagery stands apart with her interest in themes of identity and gender combined with fantasy and art historical precedents, as well as for her unique process that merges photography with painting and sometimes installation and performance art. The aesthetic effect of her process, which involves digital imagery and manipulation, hand-painted imagery, and re-photography, is perhaps initially the most recognizable hallmark of her work. The brilliantly artificial tonality and the pixelated imperfections in the final work coalesce with the unmistakably feminine and feminist subject matter to create art that is visually and conceptually complex, yet also instantly appealing and recognizable, thanks to references to Western culture as well as elements of contemporary design and consumerism.//

N. Elizabeth Schlatter, Focus, 2007