Moni’s Discolouration Disrupted in Second Life

Having been caught up with things in the physical world for much of March (and still trying to clear up the last few issues as April 2024 starts its merry dance to becoming at part of the year’s history!), I’m caught in something of a game of catch-up with events, exhibitions and what have you. In terms of some exhibitions, there are some I simply won’t get to, as their days are numbered and they’ll have likely ended before I can get to them.

However, there is one exhibition I really wanted to try to cover before it vanishes into the ether (it having opened nigh-on a month ago at the time of writing, on March 6th, 2024). It is Monique Beebe’s Discolouration Disrupted, which (again at the time of writing this piece) is still available at Mareea Farrasco’s IMAGO Art Galleries.

I’ve been an admirer of Moni’s work ever since her first exhibition in Second Life in 2017. Her work, which has until relatively recently focused on avatar studies, is always marvellously expressive and rich on both narrative and, frequently, a degree of subtext as well. Her exhibitions tend to be thematically driven and often highly sensual in nature, and the former is certainly true of Discolouration Disrupted, as evidenced by its subtitle Unveiling the Beauty in Imperfection, which itself might also be seen as a subtextual comment on modern society’s obsession with perfection when it comes to the human body.

No liner notes appear to be provided for the exhibition, allowing viewers to plumb the depths of the pieces and discern their relationship to the central theme for themselves. The pieces are a mixture of still life and animated works – be sure to enable the media option in your viewer (click the movie camera icon towards the top right corner of the viewer window) to see the latter in motion – and all appear (and forgive me if I’m wrong here, Moni) to be digitally generated.

The still life images perhaps offer the clearest link to the theme of beauty in imperfection in the manner they juxtapose clearly beautiful / handsome figures (aka society’s “perfection”) with styles and colour mixes that whilst not undermining the stated beauty of the figure(s) within them offer a degree of discordance with their beauty, drawing the eye from them and imbuing a sense of mismatch or an unfinished feel to them – thus presenting the idea of the imperfect. Yet at the same time it is these very clashes of style and / or the sense of the unfinished which actually provides each piece with a depth of beauty that reaches well beyond what might have been had they been presented as “unblemished” works. The animated images share this to a degree, but also offer additional dimensions to the core theme – the blurring of images, the use of a mask and veils, etc.

And while it may just be my personal interpretation, some of the pieces perhaps present subtextual commentary on society in other ways as well. The likes of Break Away, Hiding, Undisclosed, Empowerment, and even Fish in the Sea, all appear to offer a degree of commentary on current reactionary moves in (particularly) patriarchal / pseudo-religious circles towards matters of a woman’s bodily autonomy, the dismissing of female equality / empowerment, the right to gender identification and self-identification and choice in general.

But again, this is an interpretation informed purely by matters that impact my own thinking, and not necessarily those intended by the artist. You might well – in fact most likely will – find the images within Discolouration Disrupted speaking to you very differently. As such I do urge you to visit this exhibition, and to do so before it does vanish from IMAGO altogether, possibly in the next few days.

SLurl  Details

• IMAGOLand Art Galleries (Rising Phoenix, rated Moderate)