Holly Cerna is an Austin based artist and painter who holds a BFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work explores the effects that social technologies (image sharing and social media) have on the figure. Her more recent body of work explores light as a representation of the soul or consciousness.

Her most recent achievement is to be featured in the New American Paintings 150th West Issue.

Holly Cerna is a figure painter whose works explore the relationship between the temporary, tangible physical body and the intangible, eternal metaphysical body (spirit or mind) set in contemporary mundane contexts. Her subjects emit a glowing inner light representing the soul, communicating how consciousness might appear if visible. Through color theory, saturation, contrast, and perspective, her work expresses her fascination with the human condition. Holly’s paintings are characterized by the use of commonplace objects, settings, and her everyday experiences. Her pieces comment on the everyday aesthetic of middle class life and compares it to our “magical” inner world by using daily life as subject matter in an atmosphere of transcendence.

She tries to establish a connection between audience and subject by objectifying emotions or mental states and exposing the duality that develops through different interpretations. These captured moments could go unnoticed in their original context.