ALLIE JONSCHER

An Australian-American artist working across painting, photo-media, digital art and installation, Allie explores what it means to be human in an increasingly digital world. Her practice sits in the uncanny space between the physical and the virtual, bringing together traditional painting with software, algorithms, AI and machines to create vivid, layered abstractions.

Beneath the bold, saturated surfaces of her works are fragments of digital imagery, glitches, figures and forms; traces of the human embedded within systems of technology. As Allie describes, she is interested in the entanglements of humans and technology and the uncanny experience of digital life.

Touching Grass 

Touching Grass takes its title from an internet term for stepping away from screens and reconnecting with the physical world. It’s about logging off, walking away from your screen and grounding yourself in the here and now. This new body of work takes the phrase as both a provocation and methodology, exploring what happens when machine-generated imagery is returned to the hand of the painter. 

The works begin with Photoshop’s AI image-generation tools, which Allie manipulates with by entering streams of gibberish through physical gestures on the keyboard. The resulting images are layered, manipulated and re-composed into abstract compositions, then translated into illuminated works using acrylic panels and transparent pigment. Hovering between painting, digital screen and stained glass, the works explore the relationship between machine and hand, and digital imagery and physical experience.