GABBY DOESN’T AGE
In dialogue with Emma Stern
FVTVRIST Magazine // 23 February 2026
Interview by Elina P.
Champagne Problems, 2025 ©Courtesy of the artist and Dirimart
Fvtvrist: Can you let us in your process and the ideation behind it?
Emma: It always starts with a story I want to tell, so first I think about setting and characters. Once that is defined, I use a character-design software that is technically intended for game developers (but has of course been subverted for lots of 3d porn and erotica).
Alongside world-building, I’ve started thinking of this as an extended self-portrait project. I believe avatars are the quintessential contemporary self-portrait. I mean, anything one can ever make is a self-portrait, but avatars are how we iterate parts of ourselves, even when it’s not conscious or deliberate.
Of course, this leads to larger-picture questions of virtual identity and femininity. Virtual worlds are often populated disproportionately with female avatars, not because there are more female players, but because many male players choose female embodiments, which fascinates me conceptually. If I had to summarize what I’m most interested in, it’s the virtual female body. There’s this fine line between who you want to be and who you want to be with. Between who you want to embody and who you desire.
I always talk about this incredible documentary about the making of the original Tomb Raider game, where you see these two developers obsess over the design of Lara Croft’s body proportions. They objectify her but they’re also playing as her. That tension between objectification and self-objectification, autonomy and agency, that’s where I’m working.
Emma Stern ©Lolita Guzman
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You call your avatars “lava babies.” Why?
The idea of “lava”, is just what I’ve taken to calling the virtual clay that is the default material in any 3D modeling software, so the figures that emerge from it are, obviously, my Lava Babies.
To go just a little deeper, they do feel like something that erupted from me, something I passed into the world. They’re no longer part of me, but they carry something of me. I guess you’d call that DNA. Digital DNA?
That narrative dimension makes me think of video games. Since you work with recurring characters, would you ever imagine taking them into another medium — say, if a game director approached you tomorrow?
That’s absolutely the direction. I’ve started calling this whole body of work a “universe creation project.” Visually, I borrow heavily from video game aesthetics. But what really interests me isn’t gameplay, it’s world-building. Open-world games especially: spaces built for exploration and interaction. I’m deeply influenced by James P. Carse and his ideas about finite and infinite games.
Ideally, I’d love to create my own video game at some point, it feels like the only logical conclusion of what I’ve been building.
Buttercup (buttercream) ©Courtesy of the artist and Dirimart
How do you imagine this world evolving over time?
The universe evolves alongside my fluency with the tools.
Early paintings were simple - dark, minimal environments, partly because I was still learning the software and building confidence. Over time, the world became more complex, and so did the characters.
I keep source files for every character, so I can revisit them. Some change. For example, one early character, Gabby, began as a small girl and eventually became a bodybuilder. She just transformed at some point and that’s who she is now, that’s how I represent her.
But Gabby is a particular case because avatars aren’t affected by time unless you, the architect of your own world-building project, dictate that. They don’t age unless you want them to. Some grow up; others don’t. Some get new hairstyles. And yet I don’t feel like some megalomaniac God-head, it’s more like I’m their hairdresser. They come to me once in a while and say, “I’m ready for a change,” and I say, “I have an idea.”
“I’VE STARTED CALLING THIS WHOLE BODY OF WORK A UNIVERSE CREATION PROJECT — WHAT REALLY INTERESTS ME ISN’T GAMEPLAY, IT’S WORLD-BUILDING.”
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Skott + Iris (The Bone Zone) ©Courtesy of the artist and Dirimart
BUT GABBY IS A PARTICULAR CASE
BECAUSE AVATARS AREN’T AFFECTED
BY TIME UNLESS YOU, THE ARCHITECT
OF YOUR OWNWORLD-BUILDING
PROJECT, DICTATE THAT.
That narrative structure feels very constructed. Where does it come from?
I took a lot of illustration courses in art school. My painting professors used to tell me my work was “too much like illustration,” but I was getting great feedback in my illustration classes, especially children’s book illustration, which was my favorite.
What I love about children’s books is the density of detail: those small corners, tiny elements only a child would notice. You can create side narratives inside the main image and every time you return to it, there are new details to notice. In video games, you’d call them Easter eggs. I try to embed my paintings with those kinds of details as well. I think that comes from illustration.
And if your video game had an unlimited budget — who would compose the score?
Even with an unlimited budget, I’d probably want my friend Salv a.k.a. Segabodega to do it. Or like, I dunno, maybe Underworld.
About Emma Stern
Emma Stern (b. 1992, New York) received her BFA from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn in 2014. Stern’s selected solo exhibitions include Champagne Problems, Dirimart Dolapdere, Istanbul (2026); Hell Is Hot, Almine Rech, Paris (2025); Everything Looks Like a Nail (To A Hammer), Pond Society, Shanghai (2024); Penny & The Dimes: Dimes 4Ever World Tour, Almine Rech, London (2023); Booty!, Half Gallery, New York (2022); Desert Pearl, Marfa Invitational, Texas (2022) and Home Bodies, Carl Kostyál, Stockholm (2021). Among her group exhibitions are Effets Indesirables, New Galerie, Paris (2025); Utopia Vol. I, Palm Gallery, Taipei (2025); She Said She Said: Contemporary Artists from Rubell Museum, Arlington Museum of Art, Texas (2024); J’ai pleuré devant la fin d’un manga, Galerie Édouard-Manet, Paris (2024); Real Fake Door, Arsenal Contemporary, New York (2023); Cautere, FRAC Corsica, Corsica (2022) and Resting Point of Accommodation, Almine Rech, Brussels (2021). Stern’s works are included in the collections of the Rubell Museum Collection, Miami; Pond Society, Shanghai and Gullringsbo Konstamling, Stockholm. Emma Stern lives and works in New York and Paris.
