In April, I wrote about an exhibition of art featured as the opening exhibit for The Antiquorum Art Gallery within Patch Thibaud’s stunning Hanging Gardens region build. Entitled Landscapes – My Personal View, the exhibition featured the art of long-term Second Life resident Alexa Bouras – although I believe it marked my first full exposure to her work (see Alexa’s personal view of Second Life). I was immediately captivated by Alexa’s work for its reichness of content, style and narrative and noted at the time that I looked forward to seeing more of Alexa’s art.
Well, I’m pleased to say that wish has been granted – for all of us – as Alexa has a new gallery space, one still located within the Hanging Gardens of Babylon region, but occupying its own skybox as provided by the region’s holder, Cristabella Loon. Alexa was kind enough to drop me a line about her new artistic home over the weekend, and as soon as the opportunity arose, I hopped over to take a look.
Offered as a spacious cube with a mezzanine level to one side, the skybox provided to Alexa is of a modern interior design highly suited to her art, with a central water feature on the lower floor and a sweeping, suspended staircase rising above it to reach the mezzanine. This split in floor space allows Alexa to display her work in different formats and sizes, with large pieces displayed along the walls of the more “open” space to the front of the skybox, and smaller more intimately-sized pieces displayed along the walls of the lower floor beneath the mezzanine and around the mezzanine itself.
The art presents a rich mix of styles and subjects, including the Second Life landscapes-processed-as-paintings I found to be so richly evocative with Landscapes back in April 2022, together with pieces which can be regarded as drawings and / or etchings (notably the uttering captivating Anya’s Awakening, which is simply gorgeous), and those which are, by dint of angle, focus and subject, beautifully intimate in their content.
By “intimate” I do not necessarily mean they are avatar studies and / or in any way NSFW; quite the reverse, in fact. These are pieces focused on what might be regarded as the mundane, the often unnoticed or the everyday, but in a manner which grants them their own unique beauty and story through Alexa’s use of angle, focus, colour and depth of field.
These pieces are most obviously found along the back wall of the mezzanine level, where sit two absolutely delightful pieces captured at Longing Melody (see: Visiting Longing Melody in Second Life) which tell as entire story about the life and work of an artist, together with a third piece from the same region which I guarantee will capture the heart of any piano player (including myself) for the way it captures the story of these majestic instruments.
With their tight focus and unique perspectives, these appear to be part of a further evolution of Alexa’s artistic expressiveness and her growing mastery of a medium which she has come to out of a need to express herself creatively, rather than the application of skills and knowledge initially gained through the physical world. It’s a growth in techniques which I find admirable within a Second Life artist (particularly as my own attempts remain decidedly one-dimensional!), offering as it does new avenues to be explored by both the artist and their audience.
Utilising the region’s day / night cycles, with point lights to illuminate the art during the latter (so do make sure you have Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) enabled via the viewer’s Graphics Preferences!), Alexa’s Art Gallery makes for a genuinely engaging visit, presenting the opportunity to view (and purchase, if you’re so taken) the art of a very visual and engaging Second Life artist.
SLurl Details
- Alexa’s Art Gallery (Hanging Gardens of Babylon, rated Moderate)
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