Magdha’s Sole Fragments in Second Life

For February 2023, Dido Haas presents Sole Fragments, a themed exhibition of monochrome photography by Maghda, at her Nitroglobus Roof Gallery.

Like Dido, I first encountered Maghda’s work some 8 years ago, but in my case, it was at another shared exhibition hosted at the now-closed DaphneArts Gallery. Also like Dido, I also lost track of Maghda, and had no idea that she had departed Second Life for a time, and only returned in-world in 2022.

With a focus on avatar studies, often featuring herself as the model and often presented in greyscale or monochrome, Maghda has a talent for pieces that offer single-frame stories, often with an element of introspection or personal discovery.

This is very much the case with Sole Fragments, a title which can be taken both literally – these are pieces offered from a sole perspective – and as something of a double play on words: the images represent a journey – a walk, if you will – through her Second Life and times; and walks are things we undertake on the soles of our feet. At the same time these images are reflections of Maghda’s soul.

As Maghda herself notes, this is a collection depicting the highs and lows and triumphs and struggles endured; moments of growth and of emotional release. Each image is deeply candid, deeply atmospheric and powerfully resonant – made all the more so through the use of monochrome and greyscale.

Each of the twelve images in the collection is a step on Maghda’s journey, allowing us to share in moments of love, loss, escape, freedom, and self-expression. The order in which we follow the steps in this journey is unimportant; it is the time we take to experience each, both in terms of the story it presents across the entire canvas and the emotional self-expression by the artist – and in allowing that expression and story resonate within us.

Given theses pieces are offered by the artist as a means of connecting within the emotions they contain and as a window into into her soul, it is really not my place to overlay them or the exhibition with my own subjective interpretations of specific images. What I will say is that this is a softly powerful collection of images, and I have no hesitation in recommending it as a must-see exhibition.

SLURL DETAILS

• Nitroglobus Roof Gallery (Sunshine Homestead, rated: Moderate)