Category: Art in Second Life

Open at the Art Meadow at Commune Utopia is an exhibition of images by Dilligraf (M8TY). It features sixteen studies of female avatars, each presented in something of a fantasy form, and they are all quite stunning.  Nudity is present in some of the pictures, but not, I would venture to suggest, enough to make any of the NSFW.

These really are superb pieces, a rich mix of full length, partial and head-and-shoulder studies. Each is beautifully produced and presented, and each has a story to tell – some quite evocatively so. I confess to having been quite captivated by all of them, but one in particular caught my attention and held it again on a repeat visit. Essence of Time (below, right), is an extraordinary piece – which is not to diminish any of the others in any way.

Also open now, but at the Surreal Dreaming gallery is Fragmented Visions, a series of eight images by Norton Lykin.

“Reflecting on nature. love, perception and cognition I see clearly that what we perceive as reality is a flux depending on our ideas, history and conditioning,” Norton states in the notes accompanying the images. “That the present moment feeds us with all kind of possible realities. Throughout this there is one stable factor, love, which can take us trough everything, love of this being which in its imperfection is perfect, wholesome. We are in this journey called life given the opportunity to be open and question our ideas and the histories we tell and this is my project.”

All of the images are best viewed with the viewer’s Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) enabled. Seven of the images offer almost abstract interpretations of scenes,each of them using either bold colours or vertical and square overlays. The result is a striking – if hard to interpret – series of images presented in a large format.

The eighth, entitled Towards the Light, is  a marvellous use of a fresco-like form, layered textures to create a fabulous sense of depth and reflection. It’s absolutely essential to view this with ALM active – and to camera from side to side before the image to full appreciate with artistry and depth within it.

Both of these exhibition make for an interesting visit, and both are small enough to be enjoyed as a pair of back-to back visits.

SLurl Details

• Commune Utopia Art Meadow (Commune Utopia, rated: Adult)
• Surreal Dreaming (Claressa, rated: Moderate)

Opening on Sunday, August 27th and running through until Sunday, September 3rd is the last of the Kultivate event exhibitions for 2017.

The Black and White Exhibition features over 40 artists are showcasing some of their best black and white imagery! The event will also feature live performers and a special hunt, plus a Black and White masquerade event.

The artists participating in the exhibition are: Anouk Lefavre, bluesrocker, Booyakashaka Resident, ByrneDarkly Cazalet, Caingrovesnore751, demonista, Callipygian Christensen, Catalina Staheli, Char6666, Christian Ayden, Coltonvond Resident, Daruma Boa, DrusillaGwind Resident, Eleseren Brianna, Elle Thorkveld, emberdearheart, Eucalyptus Carroll, FreeDom Voix, GlitterPrincess Destiny, Grazietta Cazenove, Hana Hoobinoo, Hikaru Enimo and Marcusgay Lefevre, Karma Daxeline, John Brianna, ilyra chardin, Inara Pey, iSkye Silverweb, IthilwenRose Resident, jaime poutine, Kaijah Chrome, KodyMeyers Resident, Kylie Sabra, Lanne Wise, Lusus Saule, Myra Wildmist, Paradox Messmer, retroye resident, roxaane Fyanucci, Sheba Blitz, Slatan Dryke, Storm Blauvelt, Tayren Theas, Tiszo cioc, Veruca Tammas, and Vivienne Darcy.

Event Schedule

All times SLT.

• Sunday, August 27th, 2017, 04:00:
  • Exhibition Area Opens to the Public.
  • Yīnyáng Hunt Begins – scattered throughout the grounds are 20 yīnyáng symbols. Touch them all and win a free prize-if you can find them all.
• Sunday, August 27th, 16:00: Live Performer Parker Static.
• Tuesday, August 29th, 2017, 16:00: Live Performer Lark Bowen.
• Wednesday, August 30th, 2017, 16:00: Live Performer Dimi Van Ludwig.
• Thursday, August 31st, 2017, 16:00: Live Performer AM Forte.
• Friday, September 1st, 2017, 16:00 Live Performer J Lively.
• Saturday, September 2, 2017, time TBC: Live Performer Loreen Legeion
• Sunday, September 3rd, 2017:
• 13:00: Live Performer Melenda Mikael
• 23:59: Exhibition Area Closes to the Public and Yīnyáng Hunt Ends.

Note that the SLurl to the event will only be available when the exhibition opens at 04:00 SLT on Sunday, August 27th, 2017.

SLurl Details

• Black and White exhibition (Water Haven, rated: Moderate)

Ani (Anibrm Jung), who is an award-winning photographer in the physical world and who has been active in Second Life since 2006, recently opened a new gallery space at Gallery Graine and the Riverside Café.

Based in the Netherlands, Ani specialises in photographing nature. She captures many of her images in her own garden using only her camera and natural light; everything is framed directly through the viewfinder, and no cropping nor image manipulation is used after the fact. In this way, we are able to see each picture exactly as she did when taking it, allowing us to share her own sense of closeness with her subjects.

Art by Nature, the name of her gallery space, demonstrates this in a powerful tour-de-force  of her work, spread across two floors of the gallery space. Offering a combination of macro images, wildlife studies and landscape and coastal studies, the gallery makes for an engaging visit.

I’ve long been fascinated by Ani’s work – there are times when art and photography from the physical world perhaps doesn’t gain the recognition it deserves in Second Life. Ani’s photography should persuade those who feel physical world art doesn’t work in-world otherwise. Superlatives such as “magnificent”, “beautiful” and more really don’t measure up to the images Ani has brought in-world. Her composition is – to use another superlative – exquisite; these are pictures that would grace any home – digital of physical.

Were I asked to pick any particular pieces of Ani’s work, I’d honestly be hard put. However, her pictures of cats and ducks (seen in the middle image of this article),  are especially endearing and – having cats of my own – I repeatedly found myself drawn back to them in particular. But that said, all of the pieces on display are fully deserving appreciation – and purchase for those so minded.

SLurl Details

• Art by Nature, Gallery Graine and the Riverside Cafe (Blue Curacao, rated: Moderate)

Club LA and Gallery, curated by Fuyuko ‘冬子’ Amano (Wintergeist) has a new ground-level location, which is still partially under construction. To celebrate the move, the gallery is hosting two exhibitions; the first, Selfies: Some of My Faces, by Burke Bode, has been open since July; the second, An Exhibition by Twain Orfan, opens on Sunday, August 20th.

“Pablo Picasso said ‘Everything you can imagine is real,'” Burke says of his exhibition. “He is right. Living in a world that is completely created from scratch just by the imagination of its residents you experience this. A place where you can invent yourself new every day and for a creative person a place where you MUST create yourself new every single day. [I’m] changing my look constantly as shape shifter. Some of my shapes last for a day, for one picture; and some stay.”

He reflects this beautifully with an exhibition of images illustrating many of his various looks. These are presented in an enclosed space within the gallery, the images laid out to present something of a maze visitors walk through. Semi-translucent, the images resemble layers visible one through another so that as you walk through them, each appears to be peeled away, revealing the next, which is in turn peeled back at the next turn, and so on.

It’s both an artistic approach to presenting change and the possibilities to reinvent within the digital medium, and an intriguing means of commenting on the nature of identity and how we present ourselves in the physical world. While we may not be able to change our looks here, we do “change” according to circumstance, situation and those around us: the person we are with a lover is not the same as the person we are with a child; the person we present to colleagues at work is not the same as the one we share with our closest friends, and so on. Thus, Selfies might be seen as a reflection of this.

Twain Orfan his been active in Second Life for over eight years, but only immersed himself in the world of SL photography in 2016. “I enjoy taking photo [the] art of items that are often overlooked when photographers visit various sims,” he says of his work. “Finding pure art in objects such as a chair, a table, a flower-pot, or, perhaps a bicycle. From time to time I also try my hand at Landscapes, or an occasional shot involving my own avatar.”

An Exhibition reflects all of this with a collection of 18 images taken from around second life, all of which also demonstrate Twain’s interest in, and experiment with, angle, light and shadow. What is particularly fascinating with the images is the fact they are all raw: Twain resists the use of GIMP or Photoshop for post-processing, relying instead purely on the viewer and Windlight for his pictures. The result is a fascinating collection of pieces which are individual and collectively eye-catching, offering unique windows into our virtual lives.

Both Selfies: Some of My Faces and An Exhibition make for an engaging visit, with the latter officially opening at 12:00 noon on Sunday, August 20th, with music by Marain Dufaux.

The new gallery space itself offers more room for exhibitions, and includes a landscaped garden visitors can enjoy and an information centre / studio space. Teleport disks are provided to assist visitors in getting around – although in truth, everything at ground level is within easy walking distance of the landing point.

SL Details

• Club LA and Gallery (Amano rated: Moderate)