It’s been a while since I’ve covered an exhibition at Lizbeth Morningstar’s Starborn Gallery, in part because Lizbeth has been busy with various projects, one of which has been the re-designed and expanded. To mark this, the gallery is officially re-opening on Saturday, June 15th, 2024 with a special event and a featured exhibition of new work by Lizbeth herself.
The gallery itself now covers three floors and, in a little touch I’ve not seen at a gallery before, includes a garden on the roof where visitors and patrons can not only relax, they have the opportunity to buy the plants and items found within the garden, as supplied by the Featured Store. A teleport board within the event space fronting the gallery and between it and the beachfront provides access to the roof gallery and to the various levels of the gallery – although the latter can all be reached from this the gallery itself.
Lizbeth has a very distinctive style with her photography, often leaning towards a sense of white contrast suggestive of intentional over-exposure, together with a use of soft focus and colour-washing that I’ve not seen used by other SL photographers. While it is not Lizbeth’s only approach to photographs – as I’ll come to – it does give her photography a unique tone and look: images with a sense of watercolour paintings or which have been given a gentle colour wash. It’s an attractive approach to photography, and well suited to landscape images whilst also working with pieces that include avatars. Further, there is a purity within this approach which is very much reflective of Lizbeth’s use of her SL photography as a means of meditative self-therapy.
It’s also an approach very much in evidence on the ground floor of the gallery, which features a large display of Lizbeth’s work to the left as one enters, and the feature exhibition, entitled Be Tough to the right.
The latter might be defined as a essay on the life of the modern professional woman; someone who is all too often required to be both feminine and tough and unforgiving at the same time, forced to compete with male colleagues on terms defined solely by those same male colleagues – but who can, at the same time, celebrate themselves for who they are and celebrate the moments of freedom and delight to be found within the sunny streets of the city or when out to meet friend at night. It’s also, as the introductory notes suggest, something of a celebration of Lizbeth’s relationship with her avatar: how the persona of her avatar is both a reflection of Lizbeth as she is, and a facet of her personality as she would at times like to be – something I think we can all recognise in our own relationships with our avatars.
The majority of the upper floors of the gallery feature a further exhibition of Lizbeth’s work, entitled Before Dawn. This showcases Lizbeth’s approach to night-time photography, in which there’s often that use of a softer focus but here combined with a more obvious use of layering and employment of deeper contract and colour enhancement. In this, Before Dawn perhaps demonstrates a boarder range of images, running from hauntingly mysterious forest scenes rich in a sense of enchantment, through city scenes filled with enigmatic light and streets filled with a soft neon glow suggestive of noir-like settings, to more personal pieces presenting moods and emotions.
Both Be Tough and Before Dawn are evocative in their ability to evoke and reflect mood. They also (and her I include the broader exhibition of Lizbeth’s art on the ground floor of the gallery alongside Be Tough) form a richly contrasting but complementary pairing, both in terms of the styles and themes enfolded in each, and in the manner in which the sections of the gallery have been outfitted by Lizbeth.
The official opening of the gallery will take place between 098:00 and 10:00 SLT on Saturday, June 15th, 2024 . I’m pleased to see Lizbeth make a return to operating Starborn Gallery and continuing her love of SL photography, and I look forward to seeing more exhibitions at the gallery.
SLurl Details
- Starborn Gallery (Starborn, rated Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
Nice post 🎸🎸
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