Bamboo Barnes at Ribong Gallery in Second Life

Bamboo Barnes is one of the most vibrant, evocative, provocative, and emotive artists displaying her work in Second Life. Hailing from Japan, Bamboo works with digital tools to produce pieces that are strongly assertive, both in terms their narrative depth and their ability to dominate the space they occupy, rich pieces that speak to the eye and mind.

All of this can be witnessed first-hand at her current exhibition, Receding Reality, which opened at Ribong Gallery’s Artspace 2243, and which opened on September 12th, 2020.

What is born out of me transforms like water: here is an uncertain ego and an inexhaustible feeling for those who have left.

– Bamboo Barnes

This is an extensive exhibition of work that presents pieces in a range of styles that have, per Bamboo’s description, something of a introspective nature about them. The styles themselves offer hints of Dali, Picasso, Warhol, encompassing abstract, pop-art, neo-impressionism, expressionism and neo-expressionism.

The elements of introspection comes from the faces apparent within many of the painting on offer; faces that oft carry thoughtful expressions or distant looks, suggestive of caught in memory, or are incomplete  or distorted, as if being pulled from half-remembered memories. Those that feature figures rather than facial features equally suggest distant thoughts.

As I’ve noted in the past when writing about Bamboo’s art, the emotions she experiences whilst producing a piece are a central aspect in how it eventually emerges. These emotions may be the result of her own feelings or perhaps those evoked by the music she is listening to, and her own response to the emerging piece. This tends to give her art an added depth, those emotions remaining with it and transferring to the observer the longer one regards it. There is also something almost visceral in her work through her use of colour; this in turn gives her work an attraction that pulls at the attention.

SLurl Details

• Receding Reality, Ribong Artspace 2243 (Mieum, rated General)