Since 1974, Semmel has focused on her body as subject, beginning with her Self-Images series. Spaced Out (2019) belongs to a recent group of paintings defined by Semmel's perspective of looking down at her body, seen here against a bright turquoise background imbued with light. The figure fills the frame in a manner that echoes the in-camera cropping of the photographs Semmel takes as the basis for her compositions, with torso and legs generating a landscape of lines and curves. The effects of light, too, feature strongly, with the lower right side of her body awash in lighter shades of orange and purple. Semmel's technique combines gestural brushwork and expressive color—both stemming back to her roots in Abstract Expressionism—highlighted by strong lines that emphasize abstracted shapes within the composition. In Spaced Out, through the elimination of any specific environment, depth collapses in such a way that Semmel's viewer becomes absorbed within her line of vision—shifting perspective not only toward the physical form but also the artist's inner life. Semmel has summarized her intentions thusly, "The issues of the body from desire to aging, as well as those of identity and cultural imprinting, have been at the core of my concerns. The carnal nature of paint has seemed to me a perfect metaphor, the specifics of image, a necessary elaboration."