Category: Art in Second Life

January 6th 2022 saw the opening of Awakening, an exhibition of art by Clau Dagger, which is being held at the Into The Future Art Gallery, a part of the Kondor Art Centre, operated by Hermes Kondor.

Specialising in avatar studies, Clau is an artist photographer whose work I’ve not previously seen exhibited in-world, but who has – as this exhibition demonstrates – a talent for creating images that not only present her avatar, but offer an entire story within – and beyond – their frame. As someone who always tends to look for a narrative within a picture, this makes her work particularly fascinating to me.

Comprising over 30 images spread across the three levels of the gallery building, the art within Awakening presents an visually engaging mix of studies that are richly expressive in terms of their colour and presentation, and which offer a range of themes and stories. From “simple” pictures celebrating the seasons, through to those focused on fantasy, horror, science fiction and glamour, with dips into literature and film, this is a collection that will capture the eye and offer a richness of story that extends will beyond the framing of each picture on its own.

While there are many who practice the art of avatar study and in creating single-frame stories with their images; Clau’s work stands apart in the level of detail presented in each piece. From backdrop through props, to angle, framing, focus and pose, everything within each picture is brought together not just the create an image, but to create a world that lives beyond the limits of each image.

One aspect of this “larger than the frame” story aspect of Clau’s work is her conscious directing of her avatar’s eyes. Rather than looking out of the image towards the camera, Clau frequently directs her avatar’s gaze to a point off-camera, with the rest of her avatar’s pose set to suggest a reaction to something out-of-frame and entirely separate to the camera’s position. This gives these pieces – such as Ritual Night, Holy Gral [sic] and Cabell (as three examples) – a cinematic feel, we are caught in a moment of something wider, that were the camera pan around, we’d see more of the story and the action would resume.

Another factor that brings a number of these pieces to life is their richness of colour. Often with avatar studies, there is a tendency to tone down colour in post-processing an image, to add “natural” haze or “natural” light. While this is true in several of the pieces within this exhibit, there are also pieces here where the colour has either been left untouched or perhaps enhanced (e.g. Supernatural, Under the Holiday Tree, Spring Fae and Metamorphosis) that further intensifies their framing and story.

All of which makes for an exhibition that is genuinely worth visiting, one that lifts avatar studies to a new dimension of expression.

SLurl Details

• Into the Future Gallery, Kondor Art Centre (Waka, rated Moderate)

Update, June 27th, 2022: Art Korner has Closed.

Recently opened in the Main Gallery at Frank Atisso’s Art Korner is an intriguing exhibition that presents two sides – two personalities, if you will – of a single artist: CyberNorm (aka ndl1971).

As “Norm” the artist – who has had their work displayed in several exhibitions in Düsseldorf, Germany, between 2018 and 2020 – explores art using the brush and canvas, using the medium as a means to explore life and politics in a somewhat playful manner, and explore aspects of gender politics. Meanwhile, as “Cyber”, the artists works with the digital medium, expressing their imagination through structured, mathematical terms – in this case through the use of fractals.

Through both forms of art, the CyberNorm particularly explores the subject of control: the use of political standpoints to exert control over the world as a whole, and the ability of mathematics to present structure and control within the digital domain.

At Art Korner, these two sides of the art’s work are displayed across the two floors of the gallery building. The lower level is primarily given over to the art of “Cyber” (with one exception), and the upper level to the work on “Norm”.

The digital art offers a vibrant richness, bringing together the richness of natural forms with those of more abstracted elements to form pieces that are all individually unique and captivating. Some of these offer suggestions of Nature and life, while some capturing the infinite beauty of the Mandelbrot set, while others suggest textile-like pieces that offer their own fascination.

The display on the gallery’s upper floor offers paintings that demonstrate “Norm’s” approach to political commentary / satire, together with broader pieces that offer food for thought on the topic of what might be seen as commentary on gender, continuing female sexual emancipation and societal freedoms, including how (for some) these might be seen as threatening (as with Dragon and the Firefly, for example).

Taken individually, both halves of this exhibition contain much to hold the attention; together the present a wealth of expression and contrast the play off one another, revealing as they do two very different sides of the artist’s nature. For those interested, it will remain open through until February 2nd, 2022.

SLurl Details

• Art Korner Main Gallery (Deja, rated Moderate)

For their first exhibition of 2022 Dragon Sanctuary Gallery presents World of Fairytale and Beauty, a joint exhibition of art spanning the virtual and physical worlds presented by the Second Life partnership of Orpheus Paxlapis-Savior (OrpheusofDarkness) and Viktor Savior (ViktorSavior). Within it, Orpheus offers rich selection of avatar-inspired art, and Viktor more of his real-world paintings.

Located on the ground floor of the gallery, Orpheus presents 37 images that most clearly carry the fairy tale and beauty aspects of the exhibition. And if you are unfamiliar with his name, it might be for good reason: its marks his first public exhibition of art within Second Life – and he only started placing his images on Flickr in May 2021.

His work has a distinct clarity of style, one that carries a strength of narrative  / story with in, as is very apparent in the images he has selected for this exhibition. Offered as pairs and groups, they carry us to the worlds of ancient Greece and Rome, and those of the Celts, elves, shamen, warriors, princesses and more; the figures drawn of the imagination, yet capturing the essence of our ancient past and the richness of fantasy and fairy tale. Gently and lightly post-processed, these are pieces that are instantly engaging to the eye and imagination.

On the upper floor of the gallery, Viktor offers a collection of 38 paintings he created in the physical world and has uploaded to the virtual. Offering  a mix of flowers and plants, landscapes and seascapes that have the beauty of watercolours and the rich depth of colour oft found in oils that together present the beauty and world elements of the exhibition.

Mixed with the flora and landscape paintings are a number of abstract pieces that again offer Viktor’s richness of colour and presentation. However, what is particularly engaging with the works is that a number of them are digital copies of pieces he displayed at physical world exhibitions in Italy, Spain and Mexico in 2021.

Offering highly individual styles that nevertheless offer a balance of art from the physical world and from within Second Life, World of Fairytale and Beauty is a captivating and appealing exhibition that opened on January 4th, 2022, offering plenty of time (at the time of writing this piece!) for people to visit and appreciate. When doing so, use the teleport disk at the main landing point to reach the gallery (select “*Exhibit*”).

SLurl Details

• Dragon Sanctuary Gallery (Dragon Sanctuary, rated Adult)

Currently open at the Akikazie art hub, curated by , is a new large-scale installation by Betty Betty Tureaud which, for lovers of mazes in liable to be a measure of fun.

The Incal and the 4 Mazes takes as its inspiration the French graphic novel series The Incal (L’Incal), written by Alejandro Jodorowsky and originally illustrated by Jean Giraud (aka Mœbius), who published the initial stories in the series in the sci-fi / horror Métal hurlant (“Howling Metal”) science fiction / horror comics series he co-founded, with the full story later published as a single volume by Marvel/Epic. Set within a fictional universe, the story follows the adventures of one John Difool (in fact, the first story in the series was published in  Métal hurlant as “an Adventure of John Difool, and artefacts referred as the Incal – The Light Incal and the Dark Incal.

The graphics novels include multiple themes, include technology, religion, space, good and evil,  and more. Within her installation, Betty pays homage to some of the themes and ideas through the four titular mazes of the the installation. These are placed individually placed in four blockhouses, and can only be accessed via a teleport. Each maze has a theme (or element) – Space, Earth, Techno, Mind – with those visiting referred to at the 5th element (a passing reference, perhaps to Luc Besson’s cult sci-fi  classic of that title?).

Accessing the mazes is a case of clicking on one of four teleport options arrayed at the landing point,  an Incal (Space), an eyeball (Mind), a pink flying creature and a cube that is mindful of those of the Borg (Techno).

Clicking on any of the them will carry you into one of the mazes. These are all designed around s similar layout, and the object in to find your way to the centre and both a gift and a teleport back out. None is particularly hard to complete and again – having not read the Difool series, I’m not entirely aware as to how each ties back to L’Incal.

However, there is a rich degree of symbolism within some of the mazes. Within the “techno” cube for example, the Borg-like is continued, but more particularly, some of the hallways of the maze are marked by curtains of binary notation (and clouds of binary lines tumble here and there as well). These may at first appear meaningless, but actually represent “2022” –  the year we have just entered. Meanwhile, within the “Mind” maze, there appear eyes and hands that bring to mind the Lab’s own eye-in-hand logo.

As well as the mazes, visitors can walk between the blockhouses to a teleport point at their centre. This provides access to the Incal floating over the installation as it flashes light through the four blockhouses.

Those teleporting up to it will find sit points allowing them to take flight around the Incal  – although be careful when you stand: it can be a bit of the drop to the blockhouse below. There are several other points of interest around the installation – a crystal that rotates on being touched, another that generates a pyramid of glowing light, a cube that will provide information on Betty and a rezzer for a buzz fly creature you can sit on and take to the air.Curious, symbolic,  carrying with it an element of fun and the homage to Jodorowsky  and Giraud Incal and the 4 Mazes offers an interesting visit with rewards from Betty.

SLurl Details

• Incal and the 4 Mazes (Akikaze, rated Moderate)