Category: Art in Second Life

Now open at the Kondor Art Centre is the most engaging and fascinating series of digital art, presented by the Centre’s owner / curator (and exceptionally talented photographer artist in his own right), Hermes Kondor.

Located within the Centre’s Art Square, In The Edge Of The Dream is a collection of 20 images that combine themes of fantasy, flights of the imagination, the free thinking of childhood, and the freedom all of them can give us. Each and every one of these pieces carries an artistic and narrative richness that is completely stunning and captivating. More than paintings, these 16 works are portals to worlds of wonder, places of mystery and magic, halls of wonder and the marvels of the imagination unlocked when the mind – both in childhood and adulthood – is given the fullest freedom of thought and expression.

The introduction to the exhibition can be found within a 17th image in the square in words from Hermes himself which are perfectly written and frame the exhibition beautifully. As such, rather than ramble on myself, I’m simply going to quote them here in the hope that in doing so, I can also help visitors frame their mindset in readiness for a visit.

Live the dream, transform yourself into it and discover the Reality of Fantasy.

The Magic is right there, living by your side and inside you. Let yourself be carried away by the Dream of Existing. Be enchanted, play with what you think is real and try to transform Life into Magic. 

– Hermes Kondor

Delight yourself with the Fantasy that dwells inside the Dream. Discover yourself, finding the other side of the Real. Complete yourself with your inner side and find the supreme Happiness that is right there with you, in the deepest dimension of Life. 

Transform the Dream into Art and join me in the search for who we deeply are.

– Hermes Kondor

In addition to being presented in large format images, the painting in this collection are also available gathered into an in-world coffee table book – perfect for keeping the entire collection at home and being able to enjoy it even if you don’t have sufficient wall space for copies of the individual paintings. The book can be obtained from a table just a short walk from the exhibition’s introduction board – which I’m also using the landing point SLurl for the exhibition in this piece.

A beautiful exhibition of digital art that really should not be missed.

SLurl Detail

• Kondor Art Square, Kondor Art Centre (Waka, rated Moderate)

Currently open at The 22 ArtSpace, the boutique gallery operated by Ricco Saenz and Randy Firebrand in Bellisseria, and running through until January 20th, 2022, is a fascinating selection of 14 photographs by DeCarlo Maxim (ReDDeE Hian), someone whose work I don’t think I’ve previously encountered.

Known in the physical world as DeCarlo Hoyte, and hailing from Montreal, Quebec, DeCarlo offers the fourteen pieces within the exhibition – entitled The Art of Living in.adHD – as a photo-essay in living with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). As such, this is a very personal series – but one which is also very approachable –  in which he takes a unique and engaging approach to his subject.

ADHD is a condition affecting behaviour;  those suffering from it exhibit restlessness and difficulties in controlling behaviour, trouble concentrating or in staying focused, and may act on impulse. The disorder tends to be noticed at an early age, with diagnosis generally occurring when children are between 3 and 7 years of age (although it can be diagnosed much later); it tends to be triggered as a result of a significant change in circumstance – such as moving to a new house / neighbourhood or when starting school. For many, the symptoms tend to improve with age, but for around one-third of those afflicted, symptoms can continue through adolescence and adulthood.

As there is no single cause, ADHD is considered to be a result of an interplay between genetic (70%-80% according to the Journal of Learning Disabilities) and environmental factors, treatment tends to be highly individual and focuses on a range of potential one-to-one and / or group therapies and the possible use of medication.

Within The Art of Living in.adHD, DeCarlo offers a form of self-therapy whilst also offering us insight into his interactions with ADHD. However, he does so in a special way: rather than using his avatar, he offers photos taken in the physical world which utilise toy characters as their focus. In doing so, he achieves a  number of things that really help draw the visitor into these pieces.

Firstly, by using little characters rather than his (or other) avatar(s), he avoid these pieces being taken as simple avatar studies in which looks, fashion and setting are the focus. The use of these little characters also subconsciously reminds us that ADHD does emerge as a childhood disorder, and can radically and lastingly impact the child’s trajectory through their young life. Finally, he can, as an adult, offer thoughts and insights into living with ADHD in the most subtle but direct means, sans the risk of character expression misleading the eye and mind.

Each piece carries with it an emotional content that in some is immediately and heart-rendingly apparent (e.g Always There, Lefted Out), and in others offers a sense of amusement and fun whilst still containing a deeper message (e.g. the I Am Grooot images, young Groot being a personification of ADHD behaviours, whilst always being repressively positive in his outlook on life).

When viewing this exhibition, I do recommend you start on the ground-floor rooms, and after seeing Groot on the upstairs landing, go to the room immediately to the left of the top of the stairs (between Summer Dip and Self Reflecting), before moving to the room behind the stairs-top, which to me presents the two images that crown this exhibition in terms of their visual and emotive content.

SLurl Detail

• The 22 ArtSpace (Grenouille, rated Moderate)

Currently open at Terrygold Art Gallery (TAG), operated and curated by Terrygold, is My Little World, an exhibition by Karma Daxeline (Karma Weymann).

Located within an environment recognisably put together by Terrygold, and which is itself expressively minimalist and softly reflective of the exhibition’s title, give the sense of moving through a unique world, this is a selection of 20 avatar studies by Karma which might be said to offer a journey through her life within Second Life and a reflection of her love of photography (an additional frame within the exhibition offers the opportunity to view further pieces of Karma’s art).

Each picture offers a vignette; a single-frame story focused on Karma’s avatar. However, these are not your typical avatar-centric stories. Karma has a natural gift for presenting scenes and settings that are at once minimalist in feel and look, yet deeply expressive of mood; that are characteristically atypical of the normal avatar studies so frequently seen, and all the more richer in content and tone for it; and which offer seemingly ordinary activities laced with the more extraordinary sense of humanity, life and – in some – sensuality – which all again reach far beyond the more usual focus of avatar  expressiveness.

Utilising considered angles, focus and cropping, together with a very real understanding of the power of colour mix or monochrome scale, lighting, and use of shadow, all combined with a lightness of post-processing touch, the twenty images resent within My Little World are among the most richly expressive I’ve seen within Second Life, both in terms of the narrative each contains and for the way the pieces individually offer subtle counterpoints of style and idea within them.

In this, Karma’s art is marvellously supported by the environment Terrygold has provided: the islands of green and autumnal browns, floating as they appear to do within a night sky, suggest moments in time and life, just as do Karma’s surrounding images. And by sitting with those parts of the environment where seating is provided, we can indirectly become a part of Karma’s little world.

When visiting, do make sure you have Advanced Lighting Model enabled (Preference Graphics check Advanced lights Model), and use the teleport disk from the landing point to reach the exhibition space.

SLurl Details

• Terrygold Art Gallery (Peaceful land, rated Adult)

Almost two years ago, Melusina Parkin presented her first collection of avatar-centric images.  Just Melusina was very much an experimental collection; as Melu noted herself at the time, portraiture and taking images of her avatar were entirely outside of her focus (no pun intended), her work to that point being largely directed towards landscapes, architecture and design.

However, Melu is a uniquely gifted artist; she has the ability to identify angle, eye line, subject and focus to present intriguing picture in which it is possible to define a single line of narrative or dialogue that naturally leads one to perceive a story far broader than the canvas, and which at the same time can draw us along subtle lines of thinking. In bringing these techniques and approach to portraiture, Melu presented series of self-studies which, while obviously set and posed, were nonetheless utterly natural in style and tone, and completely captivating in their potential to tell stories – as I wrote at the time.

Now, two years on, Melusina has returned to the subject of self studies with Fading Melu, a collection of images centred on her avatar and with the same rich potential for weaving stories – but which are very different in tone and approach; something she set out intentionally achieve, as she noted to me as we discussed the collection just ahead of its September 10th, 2022 opening.

Comprising some 23 pieces Fading Melu offers portraits which are linked by three major elements: they are mostly set against a dark background; they carry a sense of being over-exposed; they utilise a depth of field that ensures both subject and backdrop (where visible) are intentionally out-of-focus.

This latter point might sound counter-intuitive; sure, depth-of-field can be used in many ways – most obviously by “fading out” a backdrop / the “less important” and either focusing the eye on the foreground subject or the specific element within an image that caught the photographer’s eye; but to blur the entire image, subject and all? After all, and as I noted in writing about Just Melusina:

“Traditional” portraits tend to be exercises in power and / or ego, however subliminal. The subject and their pose is what counts, the clothes they wear, the backdrop to their sitting, etc., are all merely accoutrements to the central theme of look at ME. Even self-portraiture can follow a similar route [so] the end result tends to be the same: to push their audience into a single track of emotional response. 

Thus, in blurring each image within Fading Melu, Melusina is literally blurring how these portraits might be perceived, and so potentially making their narrative harder to define.

But in doing so, Fading Melu – to me – achieves two goals. First, because subject and background are both equally out-of-focus, we cannot so easily discern what may have driven the thinking behind each one’s composition and presentation. Thus interpreting them becomes much deeper and more personal, our reactions formed more by our own outlook and perception rather than any subtle hints in direction presented by the artist.

Second, Fading Melu might be said to offer a commentary on the human / avatar relationship. Our involvement in Second Life brings with it a certain investment in our avatars; for some, this can be superficial in terms of how our “real lives” permeate our avatar in terms of looks, behaviour, etc; for others the investment can run very deep. Either way, the fact remains that no matter how we try, we can never fully inhabit our avatars; there is always something of a divide between avatar and self. Thus, through their intentional out-of-focus finish, these are pieces that might be seen as offering a subtle underlining of this entire “me / not me” dichotomy.

Thus, within Fading Melu we have another multi-faceted collection of images capable of stirring the grey matter, and which serve as a superb expansion and enhancing of ideas first seen within 2020’s Just Melusina.

SLurl Details

• Melusina Parkin – Fading Melu (Time Portal, rated General)