Now open at DiXmiX Gallery, is Red Balloons in the Wood, an exhibition of work by the gallery’s owner, Dixmix Source. The byline for the exhibition reads simply, when unusual avatars are wandering in the forest, and it comprises seventeen woodland scenes, each of which, in keeping with the title and the byline, feature both red balloons and an avatar.
This is a hauntingly beautiful collection, featuring some marvellous pieces, each with a story to tell – or at least suggested; quite what it might be is down to the person seeing these pictures, which range from what might be considered a “simple” capture of a horse (Horse Walk) through the pieces of fantasy (So Trees Have Gender; Cute Elf Was There Too) to some with a darker edge, despite the title (Every Way Is A Good Way, When it’s the right Time), to others with a more erotic edge.
Adding to the atmosphere of the exhibit is the use of denuded saplings and trees, some with the signature red balloon tied to them. These add to the feeling of being in a woodland setting, such that with camming, some of the images can be seen through the bare branches, extending the sense of presence within the pictures. At the same time, the soft tones used within the pictures contrast powerfully with the red balloons. The latter serve to draw the eyes to them after initially taking in the broad essence of a picture, before the eyes are drawn back to the canvas as a whole, and the story it contains.
All told, this is a masterpiece collection of the artist’s talent, one well worth visiting; and while there, do be sure to enjoy the exhibitions by Lam Erin and Tintin Tuxing, both of which are due to be coming to the end of their run (and you can also read about them here).
Opening on Monday, June 5th at Dathúil Gallery, curated and operated by Max Butoh and Lυcy (LucyDiam0nd), is Her and Him, the second in a two-part exhibition, featuring images by Hillany Scofield. The first part of this series, entitled Me_You, by Moon Edenbaum, which you can read about here.
The focus of the two exhibitions is the relationship between a man and woman, whose story arc runs from initial meeting through getting to know one another and intimacy, to drifting apart, and following on from Moon Edenbaum’s take on the man’s perspective on the relationship, June presents Hillany’s take on the woman’s view of things. “On a day like any other she walks into that little café on the corner. She knows it`s never crowded at this time of day. when she grabs a coffee and her favourite lemon pie on her way home,” she explains. “But this day is unlike the other days and this man is unlike any other she had seen around here. And his presence felt different to all the others….”
Through the 18 images on display, we’re invited to follow their relationship – which rapidly develops to one of intimacy – to the first hints of drifting apart. The lines of the story closely follows the overall narrative, but the perspective is a little different.
In both exhibitions, there is a focus on sexuality which suggests this is a relationship based more on physical attraction, of sating desires and pushing boundaries, than it is of emotional deep and sharing. Thus, perhaps it is one doomed from the start; after all, and to borrow somewhat from a classic film: “the passion that burns twice as brightly burns half as long”.
Within Her and Him, this physical element is perhaps given even greater prominence that with Me_You, particularly as evidenced by the images suspended from the ceiling of the gallery and on the upper floor. Again, the narrative is much the same as Me_You, but the greater prominence of images with a clear-cut sexual content perhaps underlines the fact that this is a relations with shallows foundations, and so doomed from that first moment of flirting in the café. Nevertheless, there is also a sense of regret presented here, in what I take to be the final image in the series, located above the entrance to the gallery.
In it, she appears to be slowly walking away from a café table – perhaps one outside the place where they first met – while he keeps his back resolutely towards her. There is an air of regret contained within it, her hand raised to brush fingers along chin as if in a physical response to thoughts of how it might have been different; his hunched pose suggestive of one resigned to the fact passions have run their course, his words would be unable to span the chasm now sitting between them.
There is perhaps a certain “sameness” between the two sets of images in these two exhibitions. In some respects, this is down to both portraying the same narrative arc; but it is also perhaps something more. By focusing on the same points in time, the same events, Hilly and Moon are perhaps gently underlining the inevitable run of this relationship, gently directing our thoughts on each series to the same closing words of the story.
Her and Him will remain open through until the end of June.
One of the reasons I like the small, more boutique-style galleries scattered across Second Life is that they are most often the places I encounter artists and photographer with whom I’m less than familiar in terms of their work. While larger galleries are oft tempts to stick with “established” names, these smaller venues tend to cast their nets much wiser.
Such gallery is Club LA and Gallery, curated by Fuyuko ‘冬子’ Amano (Wintergeist), which for June presents a selection of images from the portfolio of Peeter Tamerlane. A photographer / artist whose work encompasses both avatar studies and landscape images, Peeter’s art is new to me, and I’m delighted to have come across it.
Twenty pieces are offered in the exhibition, and they clearly demonstrate his passion for photography and art, offering evocative, eye-catching and – in places – sensual images which all have a story to tell in one way or another. They are presented in a range of formats, large and small, and set out in such a way as to suggest a working studio as much as a galleried exhibition, with pictures both on the walls and leaning against them, sometimes overlapping slightly, all of which adds to the cosiness of the display.
In terms of the larger format pictures, these are dominated by landscapes which instantly attract the eye – not just because of their panoramic format, but because of their overall composition. Gulls, facing the gallery entrance, for example, is quite magnificent for its framing of a coastal scene; the lighting is exquisite, the camera position beautifully suggestive of the picture having been taken by someone wading through the ebb and flow of waves along the sand. Equally, on the other side of the wall on which Gulls is mounted sits Cold, a piece more evocative of a painting than a photo, in which the title is beautifully brought forth through the use of colour.
Among the smaller pieces are studies of sensuality (Last Kiss To…) and sexuality (the Vea series), which again show a skilled artist’s eye in bringing forth the emotional content of the pictures. Last Kiss To… is rich in soft colours, perfectly reflecting the love between the couple. The Vea series, meanwhile, are presented in monochrome, which brings to the fore their naked sexuality. Then there are the more introspective pieces – Horizons, The Love Is…, Is Missing, Whenever, etc., each of which captures us within the spell of a story fragment caught in time, drawing us into them.
This is another delightful exhibition of an artist’s craft, and one well worth visiting throughout June.
Solo Arte, the open-air gallery space for art and culture designed by TerryGold, and originally operating as the Melania Gallery, has a new home in Second Life. To mark its re-opening, it is featuring a dual display of 2D art and sculptures by Terrygold and Mistero Hifeng respectively.
The gallery design is very pleasing to the eye, presenting a natural environment well suited to display art both indoors and outdoors, with an emphasis on the latter. A central canal dissects the setting with open-air park spaces, courtyards, and cobbled streets on either side, together with a gallery building on one side of the canal, and a salsa dance club and a bar on the other, all offering indoor spaces where art can be displayed. Bridges span the waters of the canal to link things together, and the exhibition spaces are surrounded by the low façade of other buildings, giving it the look and feel of an arts district within a much larger conurbation.
For this exhibition, Mistero has placed his familiar sculptures out along the footpaths, sitting on benches or walls or on the grass of the little park areas. The presence of many of them lends a feeling that the place alive with people, giving it a warm feel. Only the larger figures rising from the waters of the canal, and those sitting atop a high arch remind us that this is an art display.
Terry’s work, presented in its evocative monochrome style for the most part, is almost entirely displayed within the various buildings. This is a clever, as entering / leaving the gallery, etc., when viewing her art provides a very natural division between her art and Mistero’s, allowing both to be appreciated and enjoyed without and visual overlap.
As Solo Arte occupies a portion of a region, some viewers may not automatically adopt the parcel windlight – Breakwave Building Light (if installed). The gallery notes also recommend enabling Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) and Shadows (both via Preferences > Graphics.
To be honest, while enabling shadows does add depth to the outdoors elements of the venue (obviously), foregoing them on the grounds of system performance should not unduly detract from a visit (although I would recommend having ALM enabled). Similarly, if you do not have the recommended windlight available in your viewer, this also shouldn’t detract from a visit.
The exhibition will run through until the end of June, 2017.
Open from Monday, May 29th through until Monday, July 31st, 2017 at Split Screen’s temporary home*, is Giovanna Cerise’s newest installation, Flash Back / Flash Forward. This is a complex piece, rooted in both the artist’s own perceptions of creativity and in the notion – or perhaps that should be the temporal nature – of time as we generally tend to perceive it.
The core of the installation is a large, fractured structure. This seems to rise in multi-faceted tiers into the sky, but contains only a single level, reached via teleport – the large daisy at the base of the structure and a short walk from the landing point. This level is divided into disparate rooms and corridors to present something of a maze in which none of the spaces are connected to its neighbours but must be reached by passing through the walls themselves. within some of the spaces can be found certain artefacts – a suitcase and oversized key, an easel, a hat and rose, images – which we are left to interpret for ourselves.
There is no set root through these spaces, although a list of SLurls those containing objects is supplied in the descriptive note card. Instead, visitors are encouraged to wander. In doing so, moving through the room and along the corridors becomes something of an optical experience. Scenes flicker in and out of our perception, colours flick and change – white, red, white – perspectives shift; self-awareness fluctuates as our avatars flips through different states. sometimes solid, other times an outline reflecting the shapes and images contained within walls, sometimes a shadow.
It’s a slightly confusing, perhaps disconcerting effect, heightened by the longer one walks through the installation, as images and colours and outlines flicker in and out of existence or flip from one to another before our eyes, become discrete moments in time revealed only to us in our passing. And time – as noted, is the core of things here.
Flash Back / Flash Forward is an examination of time at both the micro and the macro levels. On the micro, is an attempt to encapsulate the artist’s relationship with her work, from initial concept through development, to its completion, as seen trough the lens of time. The artist can only exist in the present, thus the development of a piece of art becomes an exercise in reflection and projection: the initial idea is reflected in the mirror of construction, which serves to project the work into the future, to its final state. There can be no viewpoint from outside the linear nature of time; no real ability of see the work as a fluid whole, from start to finish.
At the macro level, Flash Back / Flash Forward reminds us that our entire life is spent in “the present” – but “the present” is personal to each of us, an elusive, undefined space through which we each travel, sometimes overlapping with the space occupied by others. It is a space into which the past can intrude via memories which flicker, appear, vanish or even morph from point to point as our present is influenced by mood, desire, understanding, and so on. And always, the shifting nature of our present foreshadows what is yet to be, but never allows us to experience it until “the future” is our “present”.
And so everything might be said to be chaotic, hence the form of the build and the random tumble of sights as we move through it. But within the chaos of the present are oases of calm; moments forever caught in time – and thus, the rooms Giovanna presents for us to find: The Dream; The Point of View; The Desire; The Lighteness; The Bird; The Impossible Choice.
This is a fascinating, intriguing installation, one which may require a careful reading of the supplied nots to fully grasp, but which is nevertheless beautifully executed.
Another World is the title of a full region installation by Solkide Auer. It is described (literally) as, “a flight in a pure geometric ambience where shapes and colours try to give a momentary lapse of relaxation. Nothing else than be at peace with yourself” – although I’m pretty sure “lapse” should actually read “period”, and I blame Google translate for the error, not Solkide.
Open through until the end of June, this is an intriguing piece – region windlight (or midnight) is recommended, and you will be to have Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) enabled in your viewer (Preferences > Graphics) to appreciate the build. Projected lights are used extensively throughout the build, so if you leave ALM off, all you’re going to see is a lot of grey. Shadows are not required to see projected lights, so you don’t have to enable them (reducing any performance hit); however, if you can, the nature of some of the shapes in the build means than the play of light across them gain added depth.
As the description states, this is a world of geometric shapes – spheres, hexagrams, hollowed spheres, squares, circles, straight lines, sine curves – all brought together in a landscape which takes on many different forms as you travel through it. Parts of the lower section resemble a gigantic roller coaster, the sine curves twisting and rolling through and around the other shapes as coloured light play across them. Elsewhere, it might be taken to be a giant’s building set, the larger shapes such as the hexagrams apparently made up of girder-like sections somehow locked together; in other places it has the look of a great machine, with elements coruscating and / or pulsing with colour.
There are a number of ways to appreciate the installation, and I recommend that you try as many and yo can. First and foremost, there is the aircar ride, available from the landing point. I suggest riding this in Mouselook if you can. There is also a series of teleport doors available, which will deliver you to different points and levels in the build, presenting the chance to see it from different aspects.
Camming also offers the opportunity to see this build and the lighting from angles neither of the other two options can offer, so if you’re practiced with ALT-camming, I recommend you have a go. Better yet, if you have a gamepad, joystick or Space Navigator, flycamming is highly recommended.
Whichever you opt for, in whatever order – make sure you have the music stream enabled. The occasional advert can be a little jarring, but the music really does set the mood for this installation.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 