Month: November 2022

After my almost back-to-back forays of late into art exhibitions that either focus on, or lean towards, hybrid art and the use of AI tools (notably MidJourney), I thought I would do a little course adjustment and offer a look at some Second Life based photographic art. To that end, I trundled off to NovaOwl Gallery, curated and operated by ULi Jansma, Ceakay Ballyhoo & Owl Dragonash.

It this there, within the ground-level gallery space, that people can find – through until the end of 2022 – an exhibition of art by Alex Riverstone, an artist whose work I have appreciated for some to and always enjoy witnessing.  This is a modest exhibition, featuring a baker’s dozen of pictures by Alex; however, it stands as proof that quantity isn’t necessarily everything: quality accounts for more.

Second Life has allowed me to enjoy it in a different way: allowing the exploration of scenes, poses and angles which wouldn’t be practical in the real world.

– Alex Riverstone

On first viewing the exhibition, I was struck by the apparent disconnect between its title – Melancholia – and the subject matter of the images presented.

In purely medical terms, melancholia is a subtype of depression, characterised by a number of symptoms such as severely depressed mood, pervasive anhedonia, and lack of emotional responsiveness. As a concept, it has a history dating back to ancient medicine in Europe, and was long regarded as one of the the four temperaments matching the four humours. However, whilst the pieces Alex presents within the exhibition can be called many things – artistic, picturesque, engaging, and so on – none immediately strike one as being of a depressed or melancholic nature when looked upon.

However, in their visual richness they do encompass another interpretation of “melancholia”, one popular in the Renaissance when it was taken as a sign of artistic genius; and there is plenty of artistic expression to be found in each of these pieces from their initial composition, through their processing and presentation and finishing with their titles, such that each one stands as a unique image capable of carrying our imaginations into a world of self-made narrative.

And it is within that narrative that we chose – as this is purely subjective – to see some of the images as how aspects of melancholia might be visualised in a picture or painting. For example, take the Duality images (7, 8 and 9). within them are hints of melancholic traits we might chose to see: the absence of anyone to enjoy the flying kites and the puppies on the bridge perhaps echoing feelings of anhedonia; the empty chairs speaking to the loneliness of depression / melancholy; the tree with its suggestion of a figure hanging by their wrists from it suggesting despondency. Others, through their titles perhaps whisper more keenly on the subject – as with the Wall and Lonesome Cottage.  Even the loungers of Summer Holiday, fading into the white-out of the picture as they  do, might be taken as a metaphor for the emptiness of melancholia.

But these interpretations are, as note, entirely subjective. Whether you opt to see then or prefer to take  the presented pieces purely as an expression of Second Life’s multifaceted beauty really doesn’t matter; this is Second Life photography rendered as art in a manner that is genuinely captivating and worth visiting.

SLurl Details

• Alex Riverstone at NovaOwl (Novatron, rated General)

Chuck Clip has perhaps been most widely known as a tireless promoter and curator of art in Second Life through his Sinful Retreat regions, which have housed a stunning mix of personal art as well as exhibitions and a home for both 2D and 3D artists from across the platform and the world at large. However – and as I’ve noted in the past in these pages – he is himself an accomplished artist in the physical world and in Second Life (where he has also exhibited widely, if often quietly), working in a range of digital mediums, including prims, which he still sculpts today in preference to using mesh and external-to-SL tools like Blender.

I’ve long been attracted to Chuck’s work, particularly his 2D art, because of its powerful expressiveness, and his ability to take and mix a range of digital techniques to create pieces of art that are visually captivating and impactful whilst carrying messages of social conscience either directly or through more esoteric means using the surreal, the fantastic and the dark – elements which may be born in part out of his own life path – to offer insights into the human psyche, love, life, death, religion, and the (my term here) ambivalent nature of the human condition.

I went to Rochester Institute of Technology initially for medical illustration. After set backs with mental illness, I returned to school, graduating from duCret School of Art for graphic design. Aside from a few small shows in local galleries, mostly I freelanced to make ends meet … My 2D work is created mostly digital using a variety of methods, from photography, to digital painting, to compositing, and more recently, using artificial intelligence to enhance and evolve these pieces into something entirely new. 

– Chuck Clip

Many of these aspects of Chuck’s work can be seen and appreciated at Elven Falls Art Collective, owned and operated by operated by Ant (AntoineMambazo) and Aires Hax, where the main gallery is currently given over to an extensive exhibition of chuck’s art across its two floors and which opened on November 18th, 2022.

Starting with the two pieces facing visitors as they enter the gallery’s foyer and progressing right throughout the seven halls (three on the lower floor, four on the upper, reached via the foyer elevator) this is a veritable tour de force of artistry at its finest.  Each and every piece is layered both in terms of its physical composition and its meaning / interpretation. Some aspects of the pieces offer might disturb the sensitive; other might upset the deeply religious – but all will challenge and give pause for thought as to the statements each carries.

The narratives found within the offered works may be as direct as highlghting the role of formalised religion has often played fomenting war, death, and destruction (the entire upper rear hall of the gallery); or more subtle reflections on human nature  – such as the mindset setting behind the avatars we encounter in Second Life (Behind the Avatar, within the lower floor, right-side hall) or the fact that as evolved as humanity might appear, we are as a race still prone to the drive of the primeval within us (Modern Man, within the lower floor right-hand hall).

Each of the seven halls in the gallery also offers a 3D sculpture by Chuck. Each offers something of a reflection of the core themes to be found within the 2D art presented within it (perhaps most powerfully through Holy War, again to be found in the gallery’s upper rear hall); however, they also stand as a statement to artistic expression in Second Life, as Chuck also notes in his biography:

As a prim sculptor I’m largely self taught. I learned by trial and error and by going to places where the works of the old prim sculptors are still shown, examining them for hours on end just trying to figure out what they did to achieve certain effects. I am forever indebted to the old prim sculptors, for they paved the way for people like me. It is their legacy that I try to perpetuate as prim sculpture slowly but surely becomes a lost art in SL. Second Life has provided us with this wonderful medium, and it is my hope that one day it becomes recognized again for the greatness it can achieve.

Chuck Clip

Bold, emotionally-charged, rich in narrative and marvellously enfolding digital and virtual artistry, Chuck Clip is a genuine maestro of digital art, and his exhibition at Elven Falls Art Collective stands as a powerful underscoring of this fact.

SLurl Details

• Elven Falls Art Collective Landing Point (Elven Falls, rated Adult)