Claudia Maté’s psychedelic pixellations

Claudia Maté’s art invites us into a surreal and pixellated world where anything is possible, and nothing is as it seems. Lurid pink babies twerk on top of iPod docks and saddle up on the backs of cats, disembodied eyeballs swivel and stare, and female skeletons flirtatiously bat their eyelashes. Last year, the Spanish-born, London-based artist stepped it up a notch when, commissioned by the Art Gallery of Ontario by fellow artist Lorna Mills, in honour of the David Bowie's V&A exhibition extravaganza back here in London, Maté envisioned her portrait of the icon as a dancing, dilating eyeball – a nod to Bowie's left eye's permanent dilation after being punched in the face as a kid – and cemented her status as a digital sensation with a good dose of humour. "It’s impossible to get bored with digital art, there is always an interesting new tool to learn,” she tells us. "The web is so fast to upload and to reach everyone everywhere. It’s very instant, very fast – I love that. Work in physical spaces is great, but very different. It can be more real – but more difficult to access as well.”

Launching in 2012, cloaque.org is just one of the artist's online art platforms – a treasure trove of GIFs and flashing imagery, that the artist describes as “an online exquisite corpse, where we invite artists from any discipline to continue this never-ending artwork.” Previous collaborators to the site have included Anthony Antonellis, Manuel Fernández and Emilie Gervais, all pioneering artists in the field of digital animation and imagery. With a penchant for abstract experimentation, a sense of humour, and an unwavering love for the digital, Maté’s ever evolving interactive online world is an open, fun and quirky way to open up a once-closed art industry to the masses.