London’s art scene is preparing to welcome one of contemporary art’s most exciting and tactile figures, Loie Hollowell, in the spring of 2026. Pace Gallery has announced “Overview Effect,” the artist’s first comprehensive presentation in the United Kingdom since 2018. Running from March 4 to May 23, the exhibition centers on a new series in which Hollowell captures, through abstraction, the fleeting sensations she experienced during the pains of childbirth.
For over a decade, Hollowell’s practice has examined the bodily landscape through symbolic geometric forms—mandorla, lingam, ogee—and flawless color gradients. Yet this exhibition marks not only a biological process in her work, but also a massive shift in perspective between layers of consciousness.
Looking Down at the World: What Is the “Overview Effect”?
The exhibition takes its title from the indescribable, transcendental awe and sense of universal connectedness that astronauts experience when gazing at Earth from space. Hollowell adapts this term to her own second childbirth experience (at home, in a birthing pool).
During her first, hospital birth, the artist felt “split” (as in her Split Orb series); in the second, amid the brief pauses between contractions, she found herself observing her own body from outside and above. This “out-of-body” experience forms the central conceptual axis of the exhibition:
- Split Orb: Fragmentation, physical ordeal, and bodily division.
- Overview Effect: Awe, integration, and the observation of the process on a cosmic scale.
The Birth of Geometry: Spheres and Mandorlas
Each painting in the exhibition consists of two vertically aligned sculptural spheres. Their intersection creates a horizontal mandorla at the center. Hollowell’s forms are not only visual but also physical:
- Convex and Concave: Spheres that bulge outward from or recede into the canvas simultaneously evoke a pregnant belly and an emptied womb.
- Nested Infants: Theoretically, these spheres could nest inside one another like matryoshka dolls, reflecting a mathematical logic that symbolizes the unbreakable unity between mother and child.
The Color Palette of Pain and Euphoria
Hollowell’s use of color merges the rhythm of bodily movement with cosmic depth. She balances the primary colors—representing sharp pain followed by euphoria—with grayish, fleshy, and purplish tones.
- Dawn and Twilight: The first three paintings explore primary colors beneath morning mist; the energy here arrives softly and deeply.
- Midday Intensity: Two works capture the harsh “noon” quality of California sunlight reflected on ocean waves and flower-covered hills.
- Sunset: The final two pieces examine a heavier light quality in the deep tones of twilight—close to the primaries but more weighted.
Hollowell’s technique reinforces this duality: from a distance the canvases present flawless mathematical precision; up close, textured and intricate brushstrokes draw the viewer into a microscopic field of awareness. The infinity of space and the fragility of new life meet on the same plane in Hollowell’s brushwork.
