Category: Art in Second Life

Art for balanced thinking in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Third Eye Gallery: Zia Branner EUNOIA

Currently open at the Third Eye Gallery, curated by Jaz (Jessamine2108), is an exhibition of art by Zia Branner entitled EUNOIA, drawing on the ancient Greek word.

Essentially meaning “beautiful thinking, a well mind”, the word’s usage is more complicated than that. Originally, it was applied to the art of oration, and the need for speakers to cultivate a sense of goodwill between themselves and their audiences to encourage a better reception of their ideas and / or viewpoint. However, Aristotle used it to define the foundations for an ethical existence: the kindness and benevolence flowing between spouses. In this, it might be taken to mean approval, sympathy and readiness to help.

Both Isocrates, and (later) Cicero leaned towards a more political usage of the term (eúnoiã, in the case of the latter): as a means to describe an individual’s feelings toward party, or the city-state, and the benevolence in which the city-state or party so hold city-state should bear towards the honest citizens, and allow them their right to hold an opinion. Much more recently, it is used as a means of referencing good mental health and general good disposition.

Third Eye Gallery: Zia Branner EUNOIA

It is in terms of finding that mental balance and our desire / need / want / struggle to achieve it that Zia presents this collection of her art. Presented in her familiar mix of abstract and impressionistic work, these are piece in which – as the artist notes in her introduction to to this exhibition – the ebb and flow of colours (for Zia, red and blue) represent the ebb and flow of our emotions in that drive to try to achieve that sense of equilibrium.

In all lives from time to time it isn’t easy to have a mind in balance. We have our downs, we have our challenges. There is cold, there is warmth. Our strength then lays in our goodwill, in our kindness and with this the balance in our mind and our well being goes up again.

– Zia Branner

There is something faintly ironic in the idea that “balance” is something that should be sought after; the idea that we must strive for it through meditation or study or exercise or whatever so often can lead to frustration or annoyance that the calming balance we desire remains tantalisingly out of reach. Yet through art we can find that balance, be it as the artist or the witness. For the artist, the act of creating art can be a harmonising act; bringing the disparate parts of self together to present a finished work; for the witness, it presents the opportunity to become lost within the flow of a piece of art, to naturally put aside consciousness of self, and thus achieve that inner equilibrium.

Third Eye Gallery: Zia Branner EUNOIA
All of this is present in the 11 images offered in this collection. Whether you see the expressions of mood / emotion in Zia’s red and blue or other colours or whether to see the expression of a coastal scene or of a daydream matters not; these are pictures in which it is easy to lose oneself in the flow of colour or the contrast of hard and soft line – and in doing so, perhaps find a balance of thought for yourself.

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The digital mastery of Milly Sharple in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Milly Sharple – November 2022

I found it hard to believe that two years have passed since I last visited an exhibition of Milly Sharple’s fabulous digital art; so when I recently happened across a Landmark to her current gallery, I knew I would have to pay a visit.

For those who may not be familiar with Milly and her work, she is a successful artist and photographer in the physical world. Not only is her art sold on a global basis, it has been used for book and CD cover art, in promotional material, posters for theatrical productions, and even on bank cards. In 2020 she was invited to do a collaboration representing the Covid pandemic with Salvador Dali’s protégé, Louis Markoya.

Milly Sharple – November 2022

Milly joined Second Life in 2008, and established her first gallery the following year. Not content with simply displaying and selling her work in-world, she also established the Timamoon Arts Community, which in its day, hosted over 40 resident artists and was regarded as one of the most successful and popular art communities on the grid before circumstance forced Milly to retire the region on which it was based.

As one of the pioneers in introducing the world of fractal art to Second Life audiences, and while in recent years her work has diversified as she continues to develop and extend her range of artistic expression, fractals have remained an integral part of her creativity. To produce these pieces, she works with Apophysis, and open-source software package which allows her to create soft, flowing, liquid effects that sets her work apart from other, more rigidly geometric fractal art that can also be found displayed within Second Life. It’s an approach that not only acts a a differentiator between her work and other fractal art, it also gives her work a stunningly organic look and feel, rich in life.

Milly Sharple – November 2022

Alongside her fractal pieces, Milly also produces digital portraits that combine her use of organic forms with the human face and body. Flowing with intentionally rich and vivid colour, these pieces have a life that is both connected to, yet utterly separate from, her fractal pieces, containing as they do their own stunning depth of expression. These portraits share the upper floor of the gallery along with pieces that enfold within them elements of abstract expressionism, pure abstractionism and touches of surrealism in a further engaging selection of digital images.

And if this weren’t enough, the gallery offers a rich vein of Milly’s 3D sculptures and pieces. These again fold within them those elements of natural, organic form and multiple artistic genres to offer a rich and engaging select of pieces that work individual and collectively as works suitable for display in one’s own home.

Taken individually or as intentional sets (such as We Didn’t Start the Fire … Or Did We? – a quite marvellous commentary on climate and ecological disasters that can be said to have their roots in our own role in impacting the world’s climate), Milly’s work is always expressive not just visually, but in offering an idea or story.

Milly Sharple – November 2022

Offering the full richness of Milly’s art, a visit to her gallery is a must for anyone interested in either her work or in the potential of Second Life presents to physical world artists to display their work to a global audience.

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Milena Carbone’s Africa at Nitroglobus

Posted on by Inara Pey

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Milena Carbone – Africa
Milena Carbone is an artist who is constantly pushing at both the boundaries of her own creative means of expression and what might be regarded as the bounds of comfort of her audience.  Through her work, she has encouraged us to consider the world around us and challenged us to face up to the harm we, as a race, appear hell-bent on doing to it – even though that harm may ultimately bring about out own demise. She has also often held up a mirror to humanity’s arrogance and poked us with the conceit of gods created in the image of Man, and she has dared to encourage us to face the failures of religion, the threat of climate change, and more.

Almost all of this is touched upon and / or embraced in Africa, her new exhibition of art opening on October 31st, 2022 at Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, curated and operated by the marvellous Dido Haas; a complex and layered exhibit, comprising images, interactive 3D elements, and external elements that present further depth to the installation, which takes as its central (but not exclusive) focus the subject of climate change.

The most obvious elements in the exhibition are the images. These are framed within the continent of Africa – a place of both unparalleled beauty and bio-diversity, and which has perhaps suffered more than most thanks to the uncaring hands of the so-called “developed” nations, and is set to do so even more unless those same developed nations are willing to actively work to reduce the global threat of climate change. They present two interwoven stories, those of Grace and Abel, which unfold as an almost Biblical journey from creation (symbolised by In the Beginning, located on the Gallery’s east wall to the right of the café building), to the end times and the fall of mankind, couple with latter-day plagues.

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Milena Carbone – Africa

These are stories we can enter into by clicking on the title plague for each image, located just below its lower left corner. These can be used to open “chapters” on Milena’s website which both offer narratives on Grace and Abel and their respective journeys, and offer-up broader food for thought -notably on the realities of climate change – for consumption.

Within the images themselves – which are also hybrid art pieces, utilising background generated via the Midjourney AI art generator combined with avatar images – can also be found reflections and dualities. Take Deluge for example. In title and tone, it echoes the story of Noah and the flood, and the destruction of all that went before; but even as it does so, it suggests more of a foreshadowing then a look back: because as climate change increases, the people of Africa – as noted in the preceding Burn Them All! – will face some of the greatest outfalls, prompting a mass migration – a literal deluge of peoples that could wash away our comfortable civilisations to the north and east of that great continent.

Running along the centrelines of the gallery’s two arms is a series of plinths mounting models of African animals. Each bears a label which may at first appear nonsensically humorous, but in fact offers commentary on the nature of our global society, where the divide between humanity and nature is becoming ever wider and more harmful, thanks to the former’s self-indulgent demands for instant gratification in all things. These models also carry additional subtext on both the issue of climate change and on the nature of “god” – whether seen as an independent consciousness or as a construct formed in our own image -, and our relationship with it. To appreciate this, it is essential that visitors to Africa approach each of the plinths in order to trigger its transformation.

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Milena Carbone – Africa
(There is also a further interactive element to the installation in the form of a dance video displayed at one end of the gallery, complete with dance positions visitors can use to join in with the performance.)

Further examination of our relationship with “god” can be found within the constructs of the images and the characters within them. Milena herself notes that “Abel” is drawn from the Biblical tale of Cain and Abel, whilst “Grace” is a name and a term often associated with “god”. The story of Cain and Abel is perhaps one of the clearest demonstrations of “god’s” fickleness whilst also presenting a metaphor for man’s inhumanity to man – something for which Africa, as a continent both straddling the equator and containing some of the world’s poorest and more in-need nations will perhaps pay one of the highest prices.

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Milena Carbone – Africa

From the above, it is hopefully clear there is a lot to unpack and interpret within Africa, and that it is an installation where interpretation should be guided via the artist’s words, and not an “interpreter” (or interlocutor) like me. As such, I will leave you with a recommendation that you visit Africa and allow yourself time to be immersed within the stories and flow of ideas lying within it.

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Bamboo’s Personal Aspect in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Bamboo Barnes: Personal Aspect

October 28th, 2022 saw the opening of an extensive retrospective exhibition of art by Bamboo Barnes at the Akiniwa region, a part of the Akipelago, operated and managed by Akiko Kinoshi (A Kiko), supported by 3D sculptures by Kerupa Flow. And when I say extensive – I mean just that: Personal Aspect occupies for main gallery buildings, at well as featuring three “outdoor” displays of her work.

Hailing from Japan, Bamboo is, as I’ve frequently noted, one of the most vibrant, evocative, provocative, and emotive artists displaying her work in Second Life. She is also an artist unafraid of plumbing the depths of emotion and introspection – as can be witnessed in some of the pieces in this exhibition.

Bamboo Barnes: Personal Aspect

Bamboo began her artistic journey within Second Life in 2011, initially working with  with avatar screenshots. In 2013, she became enamoured by in-world 3D art installations, a factor which dramatically altered her artistic trajectory, her work shifting to a format that often presents a 3D depth through the two-dimensional form of the artist’s canvas.

With this shift in direction also came an opening of style and structure to her work; there is a focus of emotional self-reflection within many of them, often expressed through the use of vivid colours. She also sought explore the more esoteric through her art – the nature of self; metaphysics; what constitutes reality; the nature of art itself – particularly her own art, and more.

Bamboo Barnes: Personal Aspect

Within this exhibition – which features pieces Bamboo has selected as her “favourites” from her extensive portfolio – we are invited to join Bamboo on her journey through art, a journey that extends from Second Life landscapes and reflections on the world of 3D art within the platform, through to pieces offering insight into her examination of the themes noted above, onwards to her original digital art and experiments with motion (animation) in art to offer further dimensional depth.

Art is never finished, just abandoned.

Bamboo Barnes

Bamboo Barnes: Personal Aspect

One of the many beauties of Bamboo’s work is that she doesn’t not offer her own thoughts on it; rather, she prefers to allow her art to speak directly to those viewing it. As such, I don’t plan to offer much of a personal exposition on this retrospective. What I will say, however, is that this is an exhibition that should be seen – and appreciated with the time it deserves; to hurry through the halls risks missing the depth of expression awaiting discovery.

In  this, Kerupa’s 3D work is the perfect accompaniment to Bamboo’s. Also hailing from Japan, Kerupa shares that heritage, while her art plumbs similar depths of expression and theme.

Kerupa Flow at Personal Aspect

Not to be missed.

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Innovations in portraiture in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Innovations in Portraiture: Cayla (YumiYukimura)

Innovations in Portraiture is the name of a new gallery in Second Life which celebrated its formal opening on October 15th, 2022.

The gallery is the joint work of Cayla (YumiYukimura) and Addie (adeleberry408), and is intended to act as a showcase for their respective art. Despite featuring the word “portraiture” within the title, the gallery covers a far broader spectrum of art than portraiture itself.

Innovations in Portraiture: Addie (adeleberry408)

Addie is a relative newcomer to the Second Life art world, her work focusing on Second Life landscapes. Within the gallery she offers Scenes of a Virtual World, a collection of 18 images captured from around Second Life which share a raw beauty that is more than likely recognised by anyone who has become caught in the world of potentials offered by Second Life photography.

These are images very much “as-seen” by the the camera’s eye, reliant on only EEP settings and the artist’s viewpoint, and sans post-processing. Hence my use of the term “raw”; it’s not in any way negatively, but rather to emphasise the honesty contained within these images that – in an age where everything captured in-world is so often post-processed and enhanced – is genuinely refreshing, open and attractive.

Innovations in Portraiture: Cayla (YumiYukimura)

In the physical world, Cayla is photographer and graphics artist. In particular, she specialises in what might be referred to as hybrid art – marking her current spread of work at the gallery the second encounter I’ve had with the format in recent weeks (see also: A gallery of dreams in Second Life), although Cayla’s work offers a new dimension to the format.

Her art starts with AI images prompted by a descriptive and sensory vocabulary. While multiple images may be produced, Cayla selects one for further processing through Adobe Photoshop to produce either a standalone image, or a possible backdrop for use with her avatar portraiture. This combination of AI generated image and avatar photography adds an additional layer to Cayla’s hybrid work.

Innovations in Portraiture: Cayla (YumiYukimura)

Within the ground level of the gallery, Cayla presents a remarkable selection of highly sensuous flower paintings, generated through AI which are, to say the least, utterly stunning. They are bracketed by a series of character portraits on the ground floor of the gallery, and a richly engaging series built around the theme of elves – a subject always close to my heart.

Two very different artists linked by a common love of art and expression, Addie and Cayla offer a lot to see and appreciate (I do recommend Cayla’s essay on AI art as well, available through an easel in the gallery), and a look forward to future visits and seeing more of their work.

Innovations in Portraiture: Cayla (YumiYukimura)

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A touch of artistic self-promotion in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Exhibition poster

I’m taking time out from regular art reviews to engage in an irregular bit of self-promotion. Opening at the Kondor Art Garden, a part of the the Kondor Art Centre, on Thursday, October 27th, 2022, is an exhibition of art entitled Masters of Landscape Photography.

The exhibition features the work of two individuals, Vanessa Jane – an accomplished Second Life photographer-artist – and moi, and is itself one is a series of exhibitions utilising the title and featuring pairs of artists to take place at the Art Garden.

I’m frankly – and genuinely – flattered to be asked to exhibit alongside Vanessa, who is is an artist in the physical world (and holds and arts degree), and is thus able to bring the eye, training and sensibilities of her physical world artistry to Second Life. This is clearly and fully demonstrated in  the selection of pieces she presents within the Kondor Art Garden, all of which demonstrate she is fully deserving of the title afforded the exhibition. Through her work, she has been one of a number of talented individuals who has – albeit indirectly – helped me to improve my abilities with the SL camera, although I still have a lot to learn.

Kondor Art Garden: Vanessa Jane

The exhibition of our work opens at noon SLT today, Thursday October 27th, 2022, with music provided by the talented DJ Tulsa Sapphire, who will be spinning a mix from the 80s, together with taking requests from those who attend the opening. I very much hope that in reading this, you’ll opt to hop along and join us for the party, or that you’ll find the time in the course of the next month to pay the exhibit a visit.

My sincere thanks to Hermes Kondor, owner and curator of the Kondor Art Centre for both extending an invitation to exhibit at the Garden, and for encouraging me to do so.

Kondor Art Centre: c’est moi!

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