Category: Art in Second Life

Kultivate Magazine and Gallery premier a new exhibition space on Tuesday, March 17th, 2020 with the opening of the Kultivate Signature Gallery, a new 3-storey hall that will provide exhibitions by established Second Life artists. for its opening exhibition, it features the work of Melusina Parkin.

Melu, whose work stands as one of my featured artists in this blog, has an exquisite balance in her photography, a fine blend of detail, space and minimalism, all carefully combined and crafted to present images that are elegant in their unique focus, and rich in narrative and feeling. This is once again apparent with Listening to the Silence, as presented at the Signature Gallery.

In writing about the exhibition, Mule notes:

Sounds and words fill the world up. Nature talks by wind whistling, waves lapping, animal sounds; humans speak, cities talk by signs. Silence is rare and it’s never absolute. It’s a gem we have to keep carefully. Silence allows us seeing the world without the distractions caused by the sounds and seeing more clearly our interior worlds.

And so it is that with Listening to the Silence, we are presented with a series of signature Melusina Parkin views of Second Life. No, not “views”, but “portraits”; Melu’s work so uniquely captures the virtual world in which we spend so much time, that each piece genuinely presents a sense of a living, breathing entity, one in which the presence of avatars would actually reduce that sense of life within it, rather than enhance it.

This is a collection of images that offer something of a continuation / reflection of ideas witnessed in past exhibitions such as Empty Spaces and Night Walks. In this selection, we are presented with views into deserted rooms, along empty streets, and over lonely waters. Each piece is haunting in its singular beauty – but we’re not being asked to just look at them, but to hear their very sounds of silence, again as Melu notes:

A photograph doesn’t produce sounds, although it can suggest them; so we can observe things just imagining their noise or appreciating their quietness. Images stop any movement, then they stop any sound as well. Silent images – images of silent things – are closely related to a sense of loneliness and of absence; we can multiply the meanings we give them.

In pointing us towards this consideration of the absent sounds within photographs, Melu is opening a much broader door to how our imaginations might otherwise create the narrative to accompany each piece. However, there is perhaps something more to this exhibition; something perhaps unintended when conceived (or perhaps not, I’ve no idea as I’ve not spoken directly on the exhibit), but utterly prevalent to the global situation the is unfolding before all of us.

The spread of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has seen cities forced into lockdown, travel restrictions enforced, and general warnings for people not to gather in groups and to remain home / work from home wherever possible. The result has been a strange emptying of streets and places – perhaps not to the extent witnessed with Melu’s images, but still very evident. Thus, her pieces within this exhibition might be seen as presenting a silent echo of what we’re seeing world-wide in the physical world. In doing so, they offer a very different voice, a reminder of the chorus of sounds that accompany our daily lives that, if not entirely silenced, has been quelled.

So it is that Listening to the Silence can be seen as a richly layered exhibition, one with the power to not only engage us in reflections about how we perceive the digital world where we spend or time or on how sounds affect our daily living; but also the potential for the world that we regard as ours and familiar, to still present us with a collective threat and challenge.

Listening to he Silence formally opens at 13:00 SLt on Tuesday, March 17th, with music by live performers Parker Static and SaraMarie Philly (14:00 SLT).

SLurl Details

• Signature Gallery, Kultivate Magazine (Water Haven, rated Moderate)

Currently open at both the Focus Photo Gallery and the Focus Artist In Residence (FAIR) galleries, operated by Focus Magazine and curated by AngelaThespian and PatrickofIreland are a set of exhibitions I enjoyed viewing over the weekend for their mix of subject and styles.

Having opened on March 6th, the exhibition that the Focus Photo Gallery, located on the upper floors of the Magazine’s main building, features the landscape photography of Charly Keating (ladycharis). Described as a “painter of thoughts; photographer of dreams” her work is just that: art that offers settings as they might appear in thoughts and dreams.

Dark-toned, carefully post-processed to emphasise certain elements – clouds, Sun, sky as a whole, the fall of light on a wall, and so on, and composed with an eye for harmony and balance between foreground and background, these are pieces in which it is easy to become lost. Such is the beauty of each scene offered, that it is both simultaneously new and yet familiar, regardless of whether or not we recognise the actual location where the original image may have been captured. They are evocative of memories that appear to be ours whilst in truth remaining Charly’s own vision.

Rich in colour and content, evocative in presentation, this exhibition served as my first exposure to Charly’s work in-world, and I look forward to seeing more in the future.

The remaining four artists considered here have their work exhibited at the FAIR gallery, a short walk across the sky platform from the Focus offices.

On the ground floor, Rachel Magic (larisalyn) similarly use her studies of landscapes settings and self-portraits to tell a story. She does so through a broad palette of styles, from black and white through to colour, with some using tonal approaches to their finish, others leaning more to painted scenes than photographs. All have touches of detail that help to draw the observer into them and frame their own narrative around the picture.

Across the hall, Jason Westfield offers a series of avatar studies that again offers a range of styles and approaches, from self-portraits through to subtle female studies rendered in a number of finishes that tend to draw the eye to them, although I personally felt the most evocative of the pieces displayed are Mask and Hand. The latter in particular is beautiful in its apparent simplicity, and yet deeply nuanced in potential interpretation and artfully presented.

The upper floor of the FAIR building presents what might be considered a join exhibition by SL partners Vin Soulstar and Airi Soulstar (AiriTryst).

Both exhibits again focus on avatar studies and between them revel the couple’s relationship and a couple and as photographers. As such, these exhibits stand as both complimentary and complementary halves of the same coin, so to speak.

Within each side of the floor where they are displayed, we’re offered insight into the individual styles used by Vin and Airi – colour, tone, lighting, post-processing, finish – which sets them apart as individual photographers. At the same time, we are given witness to the manner in which they view their work and lives as an SL couple, which draws their respective exhibitions together into a single whole.

An engaging series of exhibitions, nicely brought together in a single place, the Focus Magazine and FAIR galleries are well worth a visit. Should you do so, don’t forget to also pay a visit to the Exploratorium of Art, located under the main platform, and accessed via the building at its southern end.

SLurl Details

• Focus Magazine Gallery (Desert Shores, rated Adult)

Currently open at Akim Alonzo’s Itakos Project is an exhibition of avatar studies by Sennaspirit Coronet that is far from what might be called the “usual” for such exhibitions, given it both presents its subjects and offers a glimpse into their lives through their own words.

Entitled Union, and carrying the strap line Portraits of friends, collaborators, and lovers, it features 18 portraits of couples within Second Life who are friends with Senna, together with notes by one or both of the featured avatars on the nature of their relationship that bring each of the studies to even greater life. In developing and defining the exhibit, Senna notes:

We all know those people who, while individuals, have close ties to another in world person, whether they be friends, collaborators, or lovers. This show celebrates the “Unions” we have in this virtual world. When you think of one, very often you naturally envision the other. The great people who gave their time to participate in this show are wonderful examples of these bonds we form and proves that SL is RL.

Unsurprisingly, given Senna’s involvement in the SL art scene, the majority of the dual portraits feature other artists and those closest to them, be it their SL partners, long-term collaborators, or closest friends. The portraits themselves are elegant in their simplicity of presentation, each one framing the featured couple such that it that offers a living, breathing look into their virtual selves.

These are studies that would form an engaging series in their own right. Beautifully posed, lit, edited and and finished, each offers a statement on its subjects as both a pairing and as individuals. However, it is through the added words – which are as noted, by one of both of the subjects in each study – that we are carried beyond the images and into the thoughts and lives of those who inhabit the avatars.

Some of these pieces are short, we both have a passion for creating and I am faster than Cica so she can’t get away. Others more lengthy; all reveal the nature of the relationship between the two subjects, and whether the relationship has tended to remain within the digital boundaries of Second Life, or directly moved to encompass the physical world as well.   All of which makes for an engaging exhibition.

SLurl Details

• The Itakos Project (Black Gallery – ATL, rated Moderate)