Day: May 27, 2020

Wednesday, May 20th marked the opening of a new ensemble exhibition at La Maison d’Aneli Gallery, curated by Aneli Abeyante, together with a new look / set-up for the gallery’s spaces.

For those familiar with the gallery’s former “indoor” futuristic look with the display spaces all physically linked, the current appearance is very different. On the ground sits a warehouse-like building tucked into a corner of Virtual Holland. With an outdoor seating area / event space, the warehouse offers two routes to the exhibition spaces.

The gallery spaces are now located in the sky overhead and connected via teleport both with the ground and one to the next. These new spaces actually gives artists more physical space with their exhibitions / installations, including the freedom to add the the décor / environment in which they are displaying their art.

The teleports, as noted, take two forms: individual Anywhere Doors that, from the ground, take visitors directly to a specific exhibit / installation. These also connect one exhibit to another, if a little randomly in terms of you don’t know where you’re going next when you open a Door on any given exhibition space.

For those who prefer to select where they are going, the gallery spaces and the ground level are also connected via teleport disks that will offer a menu of destinations within the gallery, allowing visitors to pick where they go next.

The artists displaying at the gallery comprise:

• Ilyra Chardin, with The New Normal: The Date, 3D installation offering a commentary on the current state of physical / social isolation resulting from the SARS-COV-2 pandemic.
• Slatan Dryke, with a redux of his installation, Crumbs from my Nightmares.
• Thoth Jantzen, presenting Vortex one of his  immersive, mesmerising media shows.
• Nox Kirax, with a set of his portraits in which visitors are invited to consider the expressions on the faces of the subjects and reflect on what they might be saying.
• Desy Magic, offering a captivating selection of avatar studies, paintings, and 3D sculpture.
• Sophie Marie Sinclair, presenting a number of her physical world nude and abstract paintings.
• Sweet Susanowa, with an intriguing selection of photographs and abstracted paintings / drawings.

Together, they make for an engaging mix of art and expression. I admit to having a certain attraction to Thoth’s work and Desy’s images that tends to make me lean towards them, and that is true here -although admittedly, a still image of Thoth’s work really doesn’t convey it, it really does have to be experienced.

Ilyra’s piece is certainly of the times, and the staging of a couple sharing a romantic meal  whilst keeping strictly to their own apartments, and they sharing it whilst separated by the gap between their balconies is certainly of the time, whilst Slatan’s redux offers the chance to re-visit an installation that challenged introspection the first time around.

Nox Kirax, Sophie Marie Sinclair and Sweet Susanowa was three “new” artists for me, inasmuch as I’m not aware of seeing their work in the past, and all three offer something entirely engaging, in very different ways to one another. I particularly found the portraits by Nox to hold my attention in full, while the sheer diversity of imagery with Sweet’s exhibit offer a richness of imagery and a different style of narrative within them, while Sophie’s nudes have a wonderfully fluid feel to them that is suggestive of life and vitality.

A further engaging ensemble of exhibitions well worth seeing.

SLurl Details

• La Maison d’Aneli (Virtual Holland, rated Moderate)