Category: Art in Second Life

Since entering Second Life in 2019, Milena Carbone (Mylena1992) has demonstrated her talent as both an artist and as an agent provocateur in the way she has utilised her art to encourage us to think about matters of import to us all: the environment, climate change, the preservation of wildlife, the nature of our relationship with God and the controversial role religion has played in both that relationship and on the course of our history as a growing civilisation, and the greed that has also played that central role in the unfolding of our history. At the same time, Milena’s work serves as all art should: as pieces that stand as images to be individually appreciated in their own right for the beauty and / or simplicity of appearance and statement.

With the recent overhaul of her gallery space to form The Carbone Studio – a reflection of Milena’s expressiveness in art and dance – Milena opened her latest exhibition Light and Life, a selection of portraits that follow the lines of her more recent works in that that are engagingly minimalist in form whilst offering a depth of meaning and story.

Life and light are – as the introductory notes for the exhibit state – deeply intertwined. Both are born out of darkness, both express all that we have and are – and from whence we came. Between them, they offer us a chance too be renewed each and every day as we awake from darkness as the light of day calls us, and the life of wakefulness returns.

Within the nine images Milena presents in this exhibition is a glorious minimalism that personifies a part of the relationship of light and life: images that express the richness of life as captured through the message of photons travelling through space to be captured by the eye and lens to capture a moment; a memory.  At the same time they also speak more broadly to the themes noted above the birth of life from darkness, its growth through the nurturing warmth of light from simple organisms lost in a drop of water through to the complex creatures we are today, able to take joy in each new day, to share, create, to give and receive -even if darkness still sits within some of the poorer more selfish decisions we make as individuals and as a civilisation.

Whether you wish to enjoy Milena’s images and portraits of her avatar and life as she expresses it through it or whether you which to ponder the deeper questions and ideas Milena postulates in her introduction to the exhibit, Light and Life is again, a rich collection of images with an engaging, provocative core theme. It is reached via the main landing point for the Carbone Studio; while there, and before jumping to the gallery space, I also urge you to read Milena’s statement about herself and her art.

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• The Carbone Studio (Woiler, rated: Moderate)

In August 2021 I made my first visit to what was then the Elven Falls Gallery, operated by Ant (AntoineMambazo) and Aires Hax (see A quartet of artists at Elven Falls in Second Life). At that time the gallery was fairly new, and comprised four main buildings, each of two floors, fronted by a sculpture garden for 3D art.

Since that initial visit, Elven Falls has expanded and undergone a name change, becoming the Elven Falls Art Collective, offering an expended arts hub which now includes an option for artists (or those who appreciate living adjacent to an arts venue!) the opportunity to rent one of a number of spacious homes at what is a very modest price.

The Full region on which the collective stands (and which includes the Full private island LI bonus) has been split into two primary areas: to the south and running east-to-west lie the art spaces. To the north, offering the same overall orientation and separated from the art spaces by a channel of water, lay the rental properties.

With the landing point sitting at its eastern end, the arts venue can be very broadly split into four equally engaging areas. To the south lies the Left Bank, a broad, paved area overlooking open waters and off-region islands offering an outdoor display space for (primarily, at least during my visit) 2D artists. To the north, and forming one bank of the intervening channel between the two main parts of the region, sits a meandering sculpture garden that lies beyond the bridge that links arts venue to residential area, and continues all the way to the western end of the region and the Memory Garden.

Between these two sits what I’ll call the “Studio Avenue”, six spaces studio / gallery spaces. They provide something of an “artists-in-residence” parade pointing the way to the main gallery spaces, giving visitors a pleasant opportunity to browse / shop for art along the way to the exhibition spaces.

Forming the fourth element of the art venue, the gallery buildings have been reduced from four to three, but this has been somewhat compensated for by the largest of the three now offering a third floor of exhibition space, reach via the elevator found just outside the front entrance. At the time of my visit, the February exhibition had recently opened, and given the time of year had been given a suitable title: Love is in the Art.

The exhibition features four artists: Fuschia Nightfire, whose vibrant work I have not had the chance to see of late, so it was a pleasure encountering it once more; Nina Camplin, a gifted artist specialising in animal and pet portraiture and who, as well as participating in love is in the Art, is also the official Artist in Residence for Elven Falls; Leiland a physical world artist and photographer whose work spans multiple genres as can be witnessed here; and an artist whose work I believe I was encountering for the first time: Elven Falls Art Collective: Leiland.

All four exhibiting artists offer completely engaging displays of art; as noted, I genuinely enjoyed seeing Fuschia’s vibrant abstractions and sculptures; her work always have a depth and vitality infused into it through motion and colour. Similarly, Nina’s work captures the life and spirit of her subjects perfectly – and she offers the opportunity for anyone with a pet the opportunity to have her make it the subject of one of her pieces; Leiland’s work, meanwhile is so captivatingly broad in style, style and genre it is easy to lose oneself in his gallery space.

And then there is Tarozaemon. His backstory is as rich and engaging as his art – and I recommend a read of his bio, both for its level of storytelling and for the information it supplies on the nature of of fractal art – which forms his artistic forte, as demonstrated in this highly engaging exhibit. Nor does Taro leave the explanations to a note card; within his gallery space he has taken the time to provide a guide to the various fractal types, from the simple Von Koch Curve, through to the perhaps most famous of them all: the Mandelbrot set, passing by way of the Julia set and others,. It adds a further depth of appreciation for his work – and if you are not familiar with the mathematical and natural form of the fractal, I high recommend a visit.

For those interested in the Elven Falls rental accommodations, these all take the form of Cain Maven’s expansive Cranmore house.  Six such units are offered, each within its own garden (but not its own parcel), laid out around a communal swimming pool and terrace. Sufficient room is provided between the houses such that local chat won’t carry between them, and each has a waterside view to the rear aspect. At L$200 per week for rent, they are offered semi-furnished (kitchen and bathroom) and have 200 LI included. At the time of my visit, two units were still available for interested parties.

Offering a rich and diverse selection of art and artists, Elven Falls is an engaging community hub that continues to grow both in that broadness of art on display, and through its design and layout.

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• Elven Falls Art Collective (Elven Falls, rated Adult)

Indigenous Australian art takes many forms – rock painting, dot painting, rock engravings, bark painting, carvings, sculptures, and weaving and string art – and is the oldest unbroken tradition of art in the world.

It is rich in meaning and forms a central element of aboriginal life, the motifs, symbols and designs used revealing tribal relationships, social position, and more – all of which is noted by Sophie de Saint Phalle (Perpetua1010) in the introduction to Infinite, her latest exhibition which opened at the end of January 2022 in a new level of her gallery spaces, the Subcutan Art Gallery and Multimedia Centre.

Art is part of the main rituals in Aboriginal culture: it marks territories, records history, supports and transmits narratives about the Dreamtime. Similar to how Christians have their own story about the creation of the world, Aboriginal Dreamtime describes the creation of the world and each landscape.

– From the introduction of Infinite by Sophie de Saint Phalle

Laid out in a setting designed to evoke thoughts of the outback desert, with large rock-like blocks that appear to shimmer in the heat, Infinite presents a series of bass-relief paintings and watercolours by Sophie produced in the same manner and styles as those used by Australian aboriginals. However, these are no mere interpretations of indigenous art; rather, it is a genuine homage, as Sophie notes:

My art shown at this gallery was inspired by my stay in Australia where I lived with the Aborigines for several weeks.

From the Aborigines I learnt how to find and use the typical aboriginal paints. Mainly pigments derived from clay tinted with mineral oxides Very rare is the colour blue which you find in some of my paintings.

Some colours are mined from “ochre mines” and used for both painting and ceremonies. Inorganic pigments such as ochre or rock flour is sometimes collected only by certain men of a clan. Other colours are made from clay, wood ash, and animal blood. All colours are natural.

– Sophie de Saint Phalle

These are richly evocative pieces that speak to traditions, beliefs and a view of the world that is far, older than any European or other influences that have made their way to, and across, Australia.

They also stand as a mark of respect from Sophie to the peoples with whom she spent time and from whom she learned their techniques and approach to their painting as a expression of their history. For as she again herself notes: within aboriginal society, reputation is acquired through the gaining of knowledge and understanding and not by the accumulation of material possessions.

Thus the pieces in this exhibition speak to the knowledge and understanding Sophie has received from her mentors, and presents a reflection of the infinite depth of their beliefs and connection to Nature. They also offer a fascinating glimpse into a world the majority of us will never witness, much less encounter or understand, marking Infinite as much a journey as an exhibition.

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• Infinite, Subcutan Art Gallery (Ocean Island, rated Adult)

In the United States (where it also known as African-American History Month) and Canada, February marks Black History month, an annual remembrance of important people and events in the history of the African Diaspora (also observed in the UK and Ireland, but in the month of October). Given this, it is fitting that February should also see The Eye Arts host the latest 3D installation by London Junkers and which celebrates the life and work of a great American heroine – Harriet Tubman.

Entitled Hero, this is another installation by Junkers that is both marvellously understated in form but powerful in its content and depth. Rather than offering multiple scenes depicting Tubman’s life and work, London instead presents two gallery spaces that simply and directly encapsulate the major factors of her early life and work as an abolitionist, supported by the words of a poem also penned by Junkers.

Born into slavery in 1822 (as Armanda Ross) in Dorchester County, Maryland, Harriet Tubman was routed exposed to violent beatings and whippings as a child, and received traumatic head wound when a heavy metal weight thrown by an irate overseer struck her, leaving her with bouts of dizziness, pain in the form of headaches and hypersomnia throughout the rest of her life. As a result of this injury and the visions it gave her, Harriet became devoutly religious – and determined to escape her bonds.

In 1849, Tubman finally realised her goal to escape slavery, thanks to several factors combining – her belief in the Old Testament’s tales of deliverance for enslaved people; the discovery that her current owners were ignoring a stipulation the her mother would be manumitted (freed by her owners) at the age of 45; and thirdly that the widow of her owner might actually break up her family be selling them off.

However, a first attempt, made with her brothers Ben and Henry, ended when her siblings opted to return. A few months later Harriet tried again, this time making use of the so-called Underground Railroad – a network of former slaves, those still enslaved, abolitionists, and other activists – to reach the relative safety of Philadelphia. But she did not rest on her laurels.

I was a stranger in a strange land. My father, my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and friends were [in Maryland]. But I was free, and they should be free.

– Harriet Tubman

And so, spurred both by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 which imposed heavy punishment on those aiding escaped slaves, together with the news that members of her family were to be sold off, Tubman started working to bring her family and other escaping slaves out of Maryland and, thanks to the threat of the Fugitive Slave Law making it harder to find places where escapees could be kept safe, she would lead them as far north as British Ontario (Canada), the British Empire having abolished slavery altogether. Over the course of 11 years and 13 expeditions, Tubman directly guided 70 slaves to freedom, and assisted an estimated 50-60 more in their efforts to find freedom.

All of this is captured with Junker’s words and installation. In the first hall, the poem is set upon a pedestal alongside a fire roaring in a hearth – the latter suggestive of the warmth and comfort of a place to live free from the rigours and terror of slavery. Click the poem to get a HUD version for ease of reading, if required, for the words are beautifully crafted, telling Harriet’s tale in freeing herself and then seeking to free the rest of her family and others. Within in it we find not only a reflection of her life and work as a practical abolitionist, but also personal touches that bring her to life, such as the name Minty awarded her by her family or that of Moses, the name given her by those she freed because like him, she led her people from bondage.

Either side of this poem and its warm, safe fireplace sit railway tracks and little wagons, personifying the idea of the Underground Railroad and to the idea of slave labour (the wagons resembling those used to haul coal, rock or other fruits of manual labour). Both of these tracks angle towards a stone arch that leads visitors into woodland clearing at night.

Here a single track of rail line points to the towering figure of Tubman as show towers like an angelic protector over a pregnant woman and two young children  – one of whom carries the yoke and chains of slavery -, figures that represent all those she guided to safety from captivity. Around them, the Moonlit woods stand as a reminder of the covert nature of journeys Tubman took with her wards, travelling by night and hiding by day. Within the setting we also witness the dangers that hunted them by day and night: the baying hounds that tracked them, leading torch-bearing, angry men promising the threat of recapture or even death from a bullet or at the end of a rope for having the temerity to attempt to seek a life of freedom.

Harriet Tubman’s life and work was remarkable; not only did she do much to free those enslaved  directly by physical efforts, she also worked alongside abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and John Brown and working in support of the Union cause in the US Civil War (where she was directly involved in an action that resulted in the freeing on 750 slaves), and then in later life worked to promote the cause of women’s suffrage. Within Hero London offers a just honouring of Tubman and her endeavours and a fitting exhibit for Black History Month – do be sure to pay it a visit.

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• Hero, The Eye Gallery (Gigli Waves, rated Moderate)

I first encountered the physical world photography of Hermes Kondor back in 2020, when he presented a magnificent select of photographs centred on the Tejo Power Station, Lisbon, Portugal, one of the country’s great heritage centres and home to the Electricity Museum (see: The beauty of steam machines in Second Life).

I was, to say the least, immediately smitten by his work: his use of lighting, colour, composition, together with an avoidance of post-processing, these were images inherently and natural captivating. As such, while his focus within Second Life since that time has been establishing the Kondor Arts Centre as a multi-facet arts hub, I have always been excited when I learn that he is exhibiting his own work in-world.

And so, while I could not make the opening at Eviana Raider’s Vibes Gallery, I was keen to hop over and visit It’s All About the Sea as soon as life offered me the time to fully immerse myself in Hermes’ latest exhibition.

For almost our entire history, humankind has had a relationship with the sea. It has been a source of food, a vast spread of blue that has called us to try to reach across its far horizon to touch whatever might lay beyond; it has romanced us with its mysteries and terrified us with it power, It has challenged our urge to conquer and master – if ever we could master so powerful and capricious a force. But, we have also sailed the seas of the world, and learned to harness their power; we have received their bounty and sought to use their power and beauty as a means to partake of sport.

All of this is very much captured in this exhibition, which Hermes has cleverly split into three individual sections within the gallery’s three halls, allowing him to bring forth specific elements of our relationship with the sea.

Within hall 7, Hermes presents Sea & Waves, a magnificent series of 11 photographs focused on the rolling power of breakers and whitecaps as they hurl themselves through the coastal shallows to batter and strike the shore. These are the kind of waves that are fearsome yet fascinating; the directly represent the sheer power the sea holds – and in a way, it’s anger at land’s temerity in trying to confront it and stem its ebb and flow; an action which is at times foolhardy: as the fine grains of sand that form the beaches of our coastlines and island reminds us, the sea is both patient and relentless, and given time, she will wear land down.

In some of these images we can see beyond the curl of wave and sweep of foam to a glittering expanse of ocean stretching out to hazy horizons of the kind that have called to us throughout time to reach towards and beyond. These views are further underscored by the opening stanza of Emily Dickenson’s And if the Sea Should Part underscores the inherent challenge offered by these waves and those far horizons.

In Hall 8, reached via a connecting walkway, the study of waves and the idea of challenge continue, but are presented in an entirely different manner. Here, within a further eleven images, we are presented with Surfer, simply stunning images of surfers taking on and using the power of waves, riding them from initial roll through to where the water repeatedly kisses the shore before retreating once more to re-gather its strength. Thus, through these images, Hermes carries us to a place where our relationship with the sea is bound within the sporting challenge of trying to master its power and demonstrate skill and artistry within its rolling thunder; a love affair between Man and wave that is again carefully amplified through the words of Fernando Pessoa.

The images in Halls 7 and 8 are utterly captivating not only for their subject matter, but in the sheer skill Hermes has used in taking them. The clarity with which he has captured roiling white anger of wave crests as they curl over deep blue-green troughs; and retained the natural blue-green colour of the troughs themselves that call forth thoughts of the depths of the oceans is just stunning, as is the clarity with which Hermes has caught the faces of the surfers. Nor is that all; looking at these pictures one cannot help but hear the roaring boom of the sea’s coastal voice and feel the fine spray of salt carried from wave tops to shore on the accompanying winds.

Across the courtyard in Hall 9, is a series of 15 images that are again utterly masterful in their framing, colour and focus. Beach Workers differs somewhat from Sea & Waves and Surfers, as there is very much a narrative flow to the 15 pieces within it; a story of the sea and its place in our lives as a source of livelihood and of sustenance – and not just for humans. To the left, on entering the hall are five images depicting the life and work of coastal fishermen, taking to the sea against the rolling and split of early-morning waves to cast their nets to seek whatever bounty the waters below might yield, before returning as the Sun lowers itself towards the horizon, and the work of taking the catch and clearing / drying the nets begins.

This is a story that continues through the five images to the right of the hall’s entrance, where the work gains interlopers in the form of gulls and seabirds, perhaps alerted by the commotion on the beach and the scent of fish carried in the breeze, and who have arrived to see what they might get away with helping themselves to. Both of these arms of the gallery then give way to the final five images to the rear, where the fishermen and their wives, their work now done for the day, have mostly retreated from the sands to leave them free for the birds to claim, together with whatever thy might find forgotten or ignored by the fisher folk.

Each and every one of these images is utterly extraordinary in the depth of life it contains, be it aboard the little boats, pushed from the sands and riding their way over the incoming breakers or the swirling, fluttering masses of gulls wheeling in to seek their share of food. Within each picture again, not only is there a beauty of an individual scene, there is a rich suggestion of sound and smell that lifts each one from the level of a “mere” picture to a complete experience / story of life.

With its three interwoven but unique elements, It’s All About the Sea is not only a magnificent celebration of the sea and our relationship with it; it is a triumphal tour de force of the eye and hand of a truly gifted photographer and an exhibition not to be missed.

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• Vibes Gallery (Isola Del Giglio, rated: Adult)