Category: Art in Second Life

If it seems my recent art reviews have been somewhat focused on artists who bring their work from the physical world into Second Life, then there is a simple explanation: it’s because they are. Admittedly, some of it is simply down to the manner in which I receive invitations or find them within the various art group notices I frequently check; however, it is also because  – contrary to the statement I’ve heard made more than once – I think SL is actually a very good medium for artists to present their physical world art as much as it is for presenting in-world images.

Take Bif Mopp, for example, whose work is now being displayed at the AmandaT Tamatzui Gallery, owned and curated by AmandaT Tamatzui, who is herself an accomplished professional artist in the physical world who hails from New Zealand. Bif is a most extraordinary artist who dedicates a good portion of his talent and portfolio to aviation paintings, capturing aircraft, military and civil and of times past and times present. And he does so with amazing skill and imagery, perfectly capturing his subjects in all of their majesty and / or going about their business. Such accuracy, in fact that his work has been displayed not only in galleries, but also aviation museums – and even the office of a former US Air Force Chief of Staff.

As an aviation enthusiast myself, I was immediately captivated by the paintings presented within this exhibition, not only because of their technical accuracy – I challenge anyone with a love of aviation through the 20th century not to be able to recognise any of the aircraft here, even when viewed at a distance, such is the skill with which Bif have portrayed them – but because each image carries within it an entire story of an aircraft, and / or its era and or / or pilot.

Take, for example, 27 August 1941 (which I’ll state up-front is my favourite among favourites within this selection). At first glance, it is very obviously a Supermarine Spitfire Mark IID, possibly from the Battler of Britain. However, the markings reveal it to be aircraft P7308 of No. 71 (Eagle) squadron, one of three squadrons so-called as they were formed with volunteer pilots from the United States.

In particular, this aircraft was flown by Pilot Officer William R. Dunn, a man so determined to fly with the RAF, he lied his way into the Canadian Army (claiming he was from Moosejaw, Saskatchewan!), then once in the UK sought a transfer to the RAF, making a “pen slip” on his application form, so that it was believed he had 560 flying hours under his belt (500 being required to be accepted for pilot training), rather than his actual 160. In particular, on August 27th, 1941, Dunn’s squadron was escorting RAF light bombers over France when they engaged with enemy fighters. Dunn took two out before his own aircraft  – and Dunn himself – took hits, forcing him to return across the channel and a trip to hospital. He eventually re-joined the war as a member of the US Army Air Force – and already recognised at the first American fighter Ace of WWII (and in conclusion, I’ll note that Dunn went on to a distinguished USAAF/USAF career and became an artist himself).

It’s a story that brings the image even more to life, as do the stories bound within other paintings here – such as the long tradition of Dallas Doll, (Buzz Job), the P51D Mustang flown by the 352nd Fighter Squadron, US 8th Air Force and which still flies today, a favourite of several aviation artists. Then there is Bunker Hill, with its Corsair fighter (as piloted by ace Lt. Dean Caswell), showing just how small and lonely the deck of an aircraft carrier can be on an ocean as big as the Pacific – and the relief felt on finding it in the fading light of day, a sentiment also shared by Almost Home. Elsewhere, US Mail evocatively captures the pioneering days of the US air mail service as exemplified by the men who flew the rugged Pitcairn Mailwing, specifically designed to ply US government airmail routes of the 1920s and 1930s, while a high-flying DC3 hails the aircraft that really kick-started mass passenger transport after the end of WWII.

Rounded-out by a trio of beautiful landscape / seacape, this is genuinely a superb exhibition, and SL aviators from across the grid (as well a lovers of art) really should come and see.

SLurl Details

• AmandaT Tamatzui Gallery (Woolybear, rated Moderate)

Currently available within the Annexe of the Limoncello gallery – for a while longer, at least, given it opened at the start of November – is an intriguing exhibition of images by Guille (Antoronta) entitled Unseen Beauty.

Guille appears to be a relatively recent arrival in Second Life – as inferred by his Profile. An educator by profession and hailing from Spain, he appears to be bound to the natural beauty of Nature, noting in his Profile that it is the ultimate expression of art whilst his Flickr stream takes us on a journey into the microscopic – as is the case with Unseen Beauty.

Through both the exhibition and his Flickr stream, Guille takes us on a rarely-seen journey, one to a world that exists not beyond our own, but within it. no, not a world – an entire universe where the strangest and in many respects the more wonderous forms of life exist.

It is possible that this is the first time that a sample of these characteristics has been exhibited in SL, as in RL this type of exhibition is extraordinarily scarce, as well as the knowledge of these wonderful and fascinating living beings to whom it is dedicated. All the images have been taken under the microscope, on living organisms that, after being observed, have been returned to the place from which they were collected. Almost all of them are very little known, and some of the smallest, contain the keys to know how we are and how we have evolved.

– Guille, describing Unseen Beauty

Thus  we are presented with a series of living images of the most incredible creatures, from cyanobacteria (aka Cyanophyta or “blue-green algae”), a kind of  prokaryote and one of the first organisms known to have produced oxygen, thus helping to start life on Earth as we know it today. Then there are diatoms such as the family of Coscinodiscaceae, noted for their radial symmetry and circular shapes when viewed from the front.

Each image is accompanied by an information giver providing a description of the featured algae, bacteria or amoebic form, each beautifully – in places poetically – written by Guille. Witness:

In each drop, the world of Cosmarium becomes rainbow, letting the sun melt on its cover, while absorbing the juice of life between its rays, tiny pearls that live are arcoris, true water jewels. They gravitate in the water like planets that in each drop for them is infinite.

Perhaps because it has the skin of an elephant, Cosmarium pachydermum, it endures the icy winter nights with the starry sky and the scorching summer sun on the highest peaks, as long as a drop of water is its ocean between Sphagnum, and in it, which is its universe, can show its soul scalloped with green jewel, perhaps from the times when the ice was the mantle of these mountains.

– Guille, describing Cosmarium pachydermun

Beautiful images of life unimagined – but without which we would not be here to admire it – captured in an instant and written into the memory through colour and words, Unseen Beauty is a bewitching exhibition, not to be missed, and an excellent gateway to the additional exhibitions on the remaining levels of the Annexe.

SLurl Details

• Limoncello Art Gallery Annexe: Unseen Beauty (Nanga, rated General)

Opening on November 12th at a gallery space provided by the United Artists of Second Life is a fascinating and highly engaging exhibition that offers a small insight into the work of two artists from the physical world whose work is simply remarkable.

Presented by Bijoux (BijouxBarr – herself an artist), Samaniego Art is a collection of paintings by her mother and grandmother, which is being presented in Second Life with the artists’ full permission. The art on offer is primarily presented as digital prints of watercolours that art startling in their realism and accuracy whilst simultaneously presenting the journeys of the artists to the Middle East and within their home country, and starling life studies.

Most of the images are offered in pairs in around the gallery that have clearly be set out as such, allowing us to visit Manila and witness the beauty of its architecture (San Agustin Church and the El Hogar Building) or appreciate a more distant view of the city’s skyline before travelling onwards to enjoy the pools of the Estrella Falls on the island of Palawan and / or further afield to explore the streets of old Jaffa (Yafa) in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Also to be found are the vibrant richness of life studies that bring the power of dance, the serenity of a lake and the beauty of a bird to life, while rounding out the exhibition is a selection of oil paintings, one paired with the bird the other three hanging together as a eye-catching trio among a hall of eye-catching pieces that carry with them a depth of realism that is genuinely exquisite.

Drawing on a variety of influences such as the great Romantic painter Joseph Mallord William Turner through to modern artists such as Andrew Tischler, these are pieces that will genuinely grace any Second Life home. In this regard, while the pieces at UASL are not offered for sale, prints can be obtained via the Samaniego Art Gallery at Campbell Coast.

The UASL exhibition formally opens at 11:00 SLT  on Friday, November 12th, with music by Bsukmet.

My thanks to Owl Dragonash for the hat-trip.

SLurl Details

• Samaniego Art (UASL, Karpov, rated Moderate)

Bamboo Barnes opened her latest exhibition, entitled Drawer, at the Hannington Arts Foundation, owned and operated by Hannington Xeltentat. It also marks my own overdue resumption if covering art exhibitions at HAF.

A self-taught digital artist from Japan, Bamboo has used Second Life as a means of both refining her talent and displaying her work, growing from producing avatar studies to creating intricate pieces that both engage and challenge the eye and mind. Her work, generally vibrant in colour, and also evocative, provocative, and emotive, is among the most striking and unique in Second Life – and has also made the transition into the physical world.

Drawer features 20 images that appear to be self-portraits that – as is Bamboo’s style – lean towards the abstract, whilst using various techniques – collage, overlay, and so on – such that individual pieces can also touch upon the likes of impressionism and surrealism. Each image is perfectly capable of holding the attention in and of itself, but when taken together, how might they relate to the exhibition’s title and the poem Bamboo presents within its introductory notes:

Drawer that don’t close properly.
Drawer that you no longer use.
A faded picture stuck in the back, ton messed wrinkled one.
You’ve forgotten what was like but the smell comes back.
For the days you have loved close your eyes, close the drawer.

– Bamboo Barnes

To me, these lines suggest two potential interpretations. The first is on the theme of introspection; something Bamboo has dwelt upon through exhibitions such as Receding Reality and Mindstorm. However, here it is perhaps more layered, referencing that spark of joy when finding something created long ago than had been put away and forgotten, and which in turn brings forth memories and feelings that had themselves been locked away unheeded in the filing cabinet of the mind. Are, then, these images each a visual aide-mémoire, bringing forth those long hidden thoughts and emotions that led to its creation?

O might this been a broader commentary that we cannot remain caught up with dwelling on (or in) the past? That life moves on perpetually, carrying us along with it – and for the artist this means accepting what has been created can not no longer be changed, no matter how more advanced we have become or how out outlooks have changed; and for the artists, this means accepting what has been, and it is towards canvases new that one should now turn? And in this, is there not a salient reminder to us all, that while looking back can yield understanding or discovery, so too should the drawers of memory be pushed closed, keeping safe that which has been, while the eyes look towards what is yet to be?

As always, Bamboo offers us much to appreciate through her art, and much to ponder both in terms of how each piece came to be and what it represents, and the challenge she present through the five lines of blank verse.

SLurl Details

• Bamboo’s Drawer, Hannington Arts Foundation ( Xeltentat Enterprises, rated Moderate)