Cica’s Happy Halloween in Second Life

Cica Ghost, October 2025: Happy Halloween

It’s October, which means Halloween sits a-waiting at the end of the month. I’ve noted on numerous occasions that I’m not a fan on the modern take on the celebration, but within Second Life I do like to take a look at region settings and installations that offer a take on things that is a little different to the usual. Such is the case with Cica Ghost’s October installation: Happy Halloween, which she invited me to visit as it opened on October 1st, 2025.

Offered largely in monochrome (the pumpkins and stars being the exception here!), Happy Halloween offers much that might be associated with the modern take on Halloween – but also perhaps applies more broadly to generally spookiness and fun. It even carries with it what might be seen as a little nod towards Tim Burton.

Cica Ghost, October 2025: Happy Halloween

The main Landing Point sits in the sky over Cica’s regions of Mysterious Isle, where can be found the usual request about using the local environment settings, a link to Cica’s on-line store and a tombstone teleport down to the installation proper. The latter delivers visitors to a setting caught under the same star-dusted sky as seen from the Landing Point, complete with a crescent Moon low in the sky.

The quote accompanying the build is a popular take on a line made famous by Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first inaugural address. At the time, America we deep into the Depression, and his words in that address were both solemn and intended to give hope and reassurance. He certainly did not originate the phrase in question – various forms of it have been recorded since the 16th century. The version Cica uses gives it a decidedly humorous little twist:

The only thing we have to fear is FEAR itself – and spiders.
Cica Ghost, October 2025: Happy Halloween

And there are certainly spiders to be found here. They grin and bounce among flowers with equally toothy grins, or sit on stalks as if they are themselves flowers. They share the landscape with bat plants and star plants, all growing out of a dusty ground with tall hills all around, their surfaces pockmarked like the surface of a moon. In places the dust gives way to a checkerboard effect, whilst scattered across the entire setting are bare trees, odd little houses and all the local denizens.

The latter come in many forms: monsters who appear to be out for a lark more than to frighten, ghosts who fade in-and-out of view, black cats, giant pumpkins, crows… the list goes on, and I really don’t want to spoil things by saying too much here – other than the little touch of Tim Burton might be seen in the people also scattered across (over over in one case) the setting as they go about their evening’s business.

Cica Ghost, October 2025: Happy Halloween

As always with most of Cica’s builds, there are various opportunities to be found for interaction within Happy Halloween, and plenty of opportunities for photography and smiles.

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Exploring PBR with Rob Fossett in Second Life

ArtCare Gallery, September 2025: Exploring PBR with Rob Fossett

September 2025 sees a rather novel and interesting exhibition of art at Carelyna’s ArtCare Gallery. Entitled Exploring PBR with Rob Fossett, it is perhaps best described as experiments in various art forms utilising PBR materials.

Of course, PBR is (now) hardly a new component in SL (although it still appears to be controversial for some), and has a lot of practical applications in adding depth and texturing to SL environments, just as the older Blinn-Phong materials can as well. However, whilst commonplace in surfaces using in building, landscaping, and so on – and even 3D art such as a sculptures; its use in 2D art has been somewhat limited, tending to be reserved for very specialised installations.

ArtCare Gallery, September 2025: Exploring PBR with Rob Fossett

Within Exploring PBR…, Rob seeks to change this by offering a range of pieces focused on special and common art styles: bas-relief panels, stained glass, alcohol ink drawings and fractal art (something bound to attract me!), with some touching on impressionism.

The results, presented within a PBR-enabled exhibition space, is an engaging collection of images, arranged by style (so bas-relief is separate from stain glass, etc.). The Landing Point located within the bas-relief section, which is perhaps the most visually engaging of the various sections, given the way PBR really adds a 3-dimensional, tactile depth to each piece.

ArtCare Gallery, September 2025: Exploring PBR with Rob Fossett

Each classification of art is offered for free via touch boxes found throughout the exhibition space, with a request that anyone taking one or more of the boxes please offer a donation to ArtCare Gallery via the associated donation tip jar located in one corner of the exhibition space.

Should you take any of the boxes, do please remember they are experiments in PBR materials and are not actual prim-based art pieces. Don’t try to drag one out inventory after unpacking in order to  view an “image” – if you do, there is a good chance you’re going to end up applying the material to any editable surface you might drag it on to. Instead, to view a specific item, rez a prim and then apply the desired PBR material to it via the edit / build floater, then size the prim accordingly. Also note that being PBR, the surfaces, once applied, will respond to the local lighting (the examples in the exhibition utilise strategically-linked point light sources).

ArtCare Gallery, September 2025: Exploring PBR with Rob Fossett

I’m not going to comment on this exhibition in terms of individual “pieces”, suffice it to say that all of the materials offer engaging expression of art and are attractive enough for applying to your own prims (as noted above) and then displayed as art in your own SL home / personal space, again potentially with a dedicated light source. Instead, I’m simply going to suggest that if this piece and the images within it pique your interest, do go take a look for yourself.

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Catherine’s Skin like Syntax at Nitroglobus in Second Life

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Catherine Nikolaidis – Skin like Syntax

It was back to Nitroglobus Roof Gallery for me of late, to catch the September 2025 Main Hall exhibition. I was keen to do so as Nitroglobus owner and curator, Dido Haas, has invited Catherine Nikolaidis to display more of her art.

I’ve touched on Catherine’s SL-based  photography on several occasions in these pages. Working predominantly in monochrome with a focus on avatar studies, she has a gift for framing her work as much a photo-essays in reflection of mood, emotion, beauty, vulnerability, and life. Her skill lay not only in the technicalities of composition, framing, processing, cropping, and so on, but in inhabiting her images with a depth of life and subtle detail rich in the power of communication.

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Catherine Nikolaidis – Skin like Syntax

This was very much brought home to me some two years ago, when I was able to catch two overlapping solo exhibitions by Catherine, hosted at Frank Atisso’s Artsville Gallery and at the Kondor Art Centre (see: Catherine’s black and white photography in Second Life), and it is further underlined within this Nitroglobus exhibition, which Catherine has called Skin like Syntax. The easiest way to describe this exhibition is to use Catherine’s own words.

Skin like Syntax explores woman and her body as a living language. In monochrome tones, I capture shifting moods and the balance between softness and strength, intimacy and distance.
Through my lens, real life turns into visual poetry, where light, shadow, and emotion blend together.

– Catherine Nikolaidis

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Catherine Nikolaidis – Skin like Syntax

The result is a stunning collection of images rich in context, subtle in narrative and utterly captivating in form and presentation. Within each of them is a story  – or perhaps a poem might be a better term, given Catherine’s description – waiting to be told. In fact, such is the richness of expression to be found in each piece that offering words here is somewhat superfluous – and would merely be subjective on my part.

As such, I will close here, and leave it to you to visit Skin like Syntax and allow Catherine’s unique voice to speak to you.

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Catherine Nikolaidis – Skin like Syntax

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Studies of shamanism at Nitroglobus in Second Life

The Annex at Nitroglobus: Miles Cantelou – Shamanism

Miles Cantelou is an artist whom I have covered on numerous occasions in these pages, most recently in terms of Miles’ return to Second Life after time away, when I wrote about his Homestead gallery space Scirocco Art Galleries (see: The art of Miles Cantelou in Second Life).

But I’m not the only one appreciative of Miles’ work. Dido Haas, the operator / curator of Nitroglobus Roof Gallery also visited Scirocco and, like me, was struck by the intensity of Miles’ studies – particularly (I hope I’m correct in assuming) those found within the Galleria Polynesia. As a result, Dido invited Miles to exhibit at Nitroglobus, and on September 1st, 2025 they opened Shamanism.

The Annex at Nitroglobus: Miles Cantelou – Shamanism

Located with The Annex at Nitroglobus, this is a further richly engaging exhibition of paint-renderings by Miles, this one on the subject of Shamanism, with a focus on the (mainly female in this case) Shaman. Produced through a process of ink line sketches scanned into a PC and subjected to photographic and post camera blending, prior to being printed and painted, before an image of the finished piece is uploaded to Second Life.

Shamanism is a spiritual phenomenon centred on the shaman, a person believed to achieve various powers through trance or ecstatic religious experience – the Shaman, a person regarded in many cultures as intermediary between humans and the spirit realm, performing roles such as healing, divination, guiding souls, and maintaining spiritual balance within their communities. The term comes from the Manchu-Tungus word šaman, a noun formed from the verb ša- “to know”; so a shaman is literally “one who knows.”

Given this etymology, the terms apply in the strictest sense to the spiritual systems of the people of northern Asia. However, shamanism has played an important role among Australian Aborigines, some African groups, Arctic peoples and Native American Indians.

The Annex at Nitroglobus: Miles Cantelou – Shamanism

Shamanism presents fourteen richly emotive portrait studies startling in their intensity and depth. Given the headdresses apparent in all of the images, they might be taken to lean towards Native American shaman. That the majority of the images appear to be female in nature reflects the fact that shamanism has no gender exclusion.

For me, however, what is particularly striking about these portraits is the intensity of intelligence and vitality they carry. It is hard not to be drawn to the eyes of those pieces which appear to be looking directly at you and not sense the depth of knowledge and wisdom lying behind them. The result is a series of images that suggest they have not originated from within Miles’ head and sketches, but with the subjects physically allowing their likeness to be captured.

The Annex at Nitroglobus: Miles Cantelou – Shamanism

In order words, a marvellous selection of evocative art.

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The art of FionaFei’s ShuiMo in Second Life

FionaFei: ShuiMo Ink Brush Installation

I first became familiar with the work of FionaFei in 2019, and instantly fell in love with her unique and immersive art within Second Life, and have covered her in-world exhibitions on numerous occasions in these pages.

A Chinese-American who immigrated to the United States with her family at a young age, Fiona gained traditional training in fine art, gaining a BFA from Cornell University and a MS in visualisation from Texas A&M University. All of this has combined with her involvement in Second Life to celebrate artistic expression – particularly that of shuǐmò, which has been at the heart of a number of her exhibitions and installations in SL over the years.

FionaFei: ShuiMo Ink Brush Installation

For those unfamiliar with the term, shuǐmò (also called shuǐmòhuà or suiboku-ga in Japanese), is a technique of ink brush painting generally using different dilutions and thicknesses of black ink to produce monochrome pieces (although very subtle colour washes might be used as well). It first emerged in Tang dynasty China (618–907), spreading to Japan (14th century) and also reaching Korea and India. Beside the use of black ink dilutions (ranging from deep black to light gray, shuǐmò is also marked by the emphasis of the brushwork being on the perceived spirit or essence of the subject rather than directly imitating its appearance.  

Within Second Life, Fiona has offered a new perspective on this traditional art by producing exhibitions offering art in the style and tradition of shuǐmò, but which have the added dimension of physical depth through the use of 3D modelling. This has resulted in finished pieces which can gently shift as our viewpoint changes, and allows the art to become an immersive 3D space we can not only view, but experience by passing through it – including witnessing Fiona’s 2D artwork.

FionaFei: ShuiMo Ink Brush Installation – Fiona’s China Adventures

In her latest exhibition, ShuiMo Ink Brush Installation, Fiona again offers a 3D environment presented in the traditional shuǐmò style within which can be found further 3D shuǐmò paintings framed as scrolls, together with two gallery spaces devoted to 2D art neatly contained within it.

The first – and larger – of these gallery spaces offers a portfolio of Fiona’s photography from the physical world entitled Fiona’s China Adventures. This is a visually engaging collection of 11 images capturing aspects of China which are quite possibly far removed from the common perceptions of that country, helping to further bring it to life. The second presents eight ink paintings again produced as traditional Chinese landscape scroll art. I’ll leave you to discover these gallery spaces – but that shouldn’t be too hard 🙂 .

FionaFei: ShuiMo Ink Brush Installation

As always from Fiona, and expressive and engaging art space.

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Julana’s Spirit of Imago in Second Life

IMAGOLand Galleries: Julana Allen – Minimalista – The Spirit of Imago

Mareea Farrasco is a multi-talents individual: artist, photographer, gallery owner and curator, and creator of her own public spaces at IMAGOLand, which is also home to her gallery spaces.

In all of these capacities, I’ve featured Mareea and her work in these pages on numerous occasions; but this one is special, featuring as it does a celebration of Mareea’s IMAGOLandas seen through the eyes of artist Julana Allen (Julana Teichmann).

IMAGOLand Galleries: Julana Allen – Minimalista – The Spirit of Imago

I was only recently introduced to Julana’s work thanks to her collaboration with Eta (etamae), Where the Flowers Are, which opened at he Elven Falls Art Collective at the start of August 2025 (see: Where the flowers are in Second Life), and it was a pleasure to see her celebration Mareea and IMAGOLand within Minimalista – The Spirit of Imago.

For those unfamiliar with IMAGOLand, the ground level of the region is maintained by Mareea as a public space , the face of which can change from time-to-time, but which always presents a sense of peace and serenity. Within her exhibition, Julana offers a personal and captivating look at IMAGOLand’s beauty as currently presented within the region. From trees turning to gold as the year turns to autumn; from horses grazing to art both free-standing and painted on walls, Julana uniquely captures the look and feel of the region.

IMAGOLand Galleries: Julana Allen – Minimalista – The Spirit of Imago

As I noted when writing about Where the Flowers Are, Julana has a gift for art and photography, and a talent for post-processing, something which can give her pieces a tactile sense. Here, this combination of vision, framing and post processing which brings a depth of life to each piece, making it not so much an image to be viewed, so much as experienced. This is further enhanced by the space in which the exhibition is mounted, which has been decorated by Julana in reflection of Mareea’s creativity.

A thoroughly magical celebration in art; and if you’ve not visited IMAGOLand of late, I recommend viewing Minimalista – The Spirit of Imago, and then dropping down to ground level and touring the region to experience it for yourself and appreciate the context of Julana’s work.

IMAGOLand Galleries: Julana Allen – Minimalista – The Spirit of Imago

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