Category: Art in Second Life

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

Recently opened at the Main Gallery spaces within Frank Atisso’s Art Korner, is a quintet of exhibitions that together make for an engaging visit, offering as they do a cross-section of styles and subject matter, and which form the focus of the first part of this review. They feature the work of Carisa Franizzi, Alexandro Hurricane, Apollo Scribe, Syn Huntress and Blayze Benoir.

Carisa Franizzi is not new to Second Life, having been involved in the platform for more than a decade. However, she is relatively new to the world of SL art, having taken the plunge just a couple of years ago. Nevertheless, she is proving herself an adept landscape photographer. Her presence at Art Korner marks my second exposure to her work, the first being in late 2020, when I had the pleasure of seeing a selection of her black-and-white images at IMAGOLand.

Here she presents 9 colour and a single monochrome image, each with its own little tale to tell. All are going to capture and hold the eye, but I admit it was the lone monochrome Falling on Hard Times that really moved me.

Across the hall from Carisa’s exhibit is that of Alexandro Hurricane, who is the only artist in this group to present his physical world art through Second Life.

So far as I am aware, this is the first time I’ve witnessed Alexandro’s work, and I have found myself completely smitten;  His eye for detail is just incredible, the focus of his painting completely unique, and his willingness to share his sense of humour with his audience so readily apparent through the likes of Photographer, with its nod-and-wink towards the idea of self-portrait, Teddy Airman, and This is Love. Alongside of these, his pieces focused on flowers and household items and nothing short of exquisite.

Apollo Scribe really need no introduction; his avatar studies are some of the most enticing examples of single-frame narrative to be found within Second Life. What is particular engaging about his work is that he is one of a small handful of SL photography exponents who largely eschew PhotoShop and GIMP, preferring to produce their masterpieces purely through the viewer (possibly with some pre-processing thanks to the likes of Reshade).

At Art Korner, Apollo presents a collection of four studies of the female avatar face, each offering a pose and view that demonstrates just how powerfully emotions can be transmitted through the avatar’s face.

Located out in the two buildings that flank the main gallery building are exhibitions by two artists who are again relatively new to the SL art scene, although they are not necessarily new to SL as whole. Their exhibitions offer a sense of balance as they face each other across the lawns, one being entirely avatar-centric and in colour, and the other being largely landscape focused and presented in black-and-white.

The artists are Syn Huntress (avatar studies) and Blayze Benoir(landscape with some avatar pieces). Both offer works that capture the attention with their style and presentation. Syn’s work mostly clearly offers tales in which her avatar is the protagonist or central character, while Blayze presents pieces that perfectly encapsulate the term landscape as art.

Art Korner has been my first exposure to the work of both of these artists, and I look forward to witnessing more in the future.

There is a further exhibition currently underway at Art Korner that I want to draw attention to here. Immersion sits within a skybox overhead the main gallery spaces, and is a tour de force in monochrome photography, with the majority of the images presented in black and white or sepia, while those offered in colour do so in a beautifully light touch.

Produced and presented by BethBridget – an artist whose work I do not recall seeing in Second Life prior to this exhibition (which is not to say she hasn’t exhibited elsewhere) – Immersion is presented as a walk-through in which visitors can literally immerse themselves in Beth’s work thanks to the perfectly minimalist environment comprising a number of rooms arranged around the landing point such that one started and end with it. When visiting, please ensure you utilise the Shared Environment.

Still images these may be, but captured through the medium of Second Life, each and every picture found within the rooms of the exhibition space has a story to tell. What’s more, the use of certain motifs – birds, clouds, skyline, silhouette – serve to offer interconnecting threads that pass through the individual images, offering opportunities to see them as a large tapestry and  tale, a factor further assisted by the presence of props within the various rooms.

In this way, Immersion presents not only some of the most captivating images of Second Life’s many landscapes and settings I’ve had the pleasure to see, it also presents us with a story, a graphic novel, if you will, where the characters are moods and emotions, and the story is the interplay of light and dark, and the relationship bird, sky and setting that is beautiful in its subliminal power.

Six very different artists brought together through two exhibitions both of which will remain open though until late August 2021 and which should not be missed.

SLurl Details

Deju is rated Moderate

• Art Korner Main Gallery
• Immersion

Officially opening at 12:00 noon on Sunday, August 8th, 2021, is the latest Kultivate Select ensemble exhibition, which takes place in the garden space of the Select Gallery.

The theme for the exhibition is Landscapes, and it features a number of artists who will be familiar to many, especially those who enjoy exhibitions at Kultivate’s galleries, as they are very much part of the Kultivate “family”, and one or two names that may not be so well-known, but who are equally deserving of space in the exhibition.

Those taking part comprise: aquarius27, Cutewillow Carlberg, Eucalyptus Carroll, Freedom Voix, Harmony Evergarden, Jamee Sandalwood, Johannes Huntsman, Moora McMillan, TaraAers, Vanessa Jane, Via Theas and Zia Branner.

Set around the gallery’s grassy event space, each of the artists has an open-sided hut in which to display their art, presenting a summertime garden environment that fits the theme for the exhibition perfectly. Given the title of the event is “landscapes”, then it should come as no surprise that the majority of the pieces offered feature in-world locations, many of which will likely be instantly identified by the seasoned Second Life travellers whilst offered under a new light through the lenses of the artists.

The notable exceptions to this are Zia Branner, who presents another collection of her paintings that has something of a focus on her captivating coastal views, whilst Harmony Evergarden offers a set of reproductions of her eye-catching original watercolours. I admit that one of the latter (whilst perhaps not the intent of the artist) instantly carried me to the windswept coast of Northumberland, and the curving bay of sand that is watched over by the imposing bulk of Bamburgh Castle. Alongside of Harmony, John Huntsman offers a set from his Garden Collection which, I have to confess, held my attention as I could not determine if they were wholly original, or images from SL post-processed as paintings – or a mix of the two, such is the artistry in their presentation.

The two-hour opening event will feature the music of Mimi Carpenter and Sarita Twisted, and the dress code is casual.

SLuel Details

• Kultivate Select Gallery (Water Haven, rated Moderate)

At the start of the week, I visited Sybil, one of two new installations by Giovanna Cerise that opened at the end of July 2021. In my review of that installation (see: Giovanna’s Sybil in Second Life), I noted that I would also be visiting her other installation as well (which actually opened the same day) – although time and circumstance has meant I’m actually getting to it later than I’d anticipated when writing about Sybil!

Doll’s House is one of several exhibitions to have opened recently at Aneli Abeyante’s La Maison d’Aneli complex in Second Life, and it is once again a signature piece by Giovanna, being both layered and tonal, presenting the visitor with what at first seems to be merely a room of sculptures, but which actually encourages us to think about what we’re seeing on a number of levels.

The room is clearly the Doll’s House of the title, and the sculptures – 3D renderings on humans caught in various situations / poses  – the “dolls” within it. However, they are not rendered as dolls; rather they appear an monofilament meshes, their vertices and triangles all visible as they sit, lie, stand, balance precariously, the majority juggling or playing balancing tricks with one or more mesh balls.

Monochrome in nature – black vertices and white mesh faces, set within a monochrome house, the black, grey and white here and there broken by lines, dots and dashes of red and a single 2D red silhouette – the installation may at first appear to be random and without expression. However, this is far from the case.

Set on the walls of the lobby area just outside the installation, is large red sign with the invitation Touch for a Notecard. Doing so will present you with Giovanna’s thoughts on Doll’s House, which reveal it is an exercise in consideration:

House doll game irony objective balance precariousness obsession multitasking ephemeral presence absence alienation homologation fashion perfection risk superficiality smoothness narcissism socialization expression angle omnipresence ego story truth lie form oppression annihilation distortion violence choice impossible possible freedom slavery….

These are some of the words that came to mind while I was building, looking, modifying Doll’s House . My invitation [to you] is to leave a word on a notecard that you could then put in the lens. The word can be chosen from those that I have listed or linked to it or the one that comes to mind, freely, after viewing the installation.

The words you will leave will be the starting point for the development of a multifaceted artistic project that will create chains, intersections, overlaps, emotions, suggestions, visions, reflections. Thanks everyone for participating.

– Giovanna Cerise

Thus, Doll’s House might be seen as a means of opening the door for ideas that might be employed in an upcoming installation Giovanna is planning; an exercise in word-play, the characters within the house intended to spark our thinking. But might there be something more?

To me, the answer is clearly “yes” – although in saying so, I don’t want to sway people into feeling their thoughts and words must be trammelled by what I have to say here; those who wish to share in Giovanna’s work might therefore be best served by going to La Maison d’Aneli to witness and respond to it without the excess baggage of my own cogitations, and perhaps come back to this piece after doing so.

So, with that said, and my warning hopefully heeded, I’ll state that I could not help but find Giovanna’s list of words to be a reflection of life – both in the physical sense and the virtual. Each one can easily be applied to our moods, situations, circumstances, relationships, real and virtual, singular and collective, so much so that the list, wrapped as it is within Doll’s House, becomes a prompt for considered introspection on Life The Universe and Everything (but mostly life), the “dolls” of the piece the cues for us to consider who we are what we do, how we face situations, respond to the physical  and mental condition / situation of those around us.

In presenting the figures in a mesh-like form, Giovanna seems to be encouraging us to consider these thoughts not just as they affect us in the physical world, but how we carry them – whether we accept this or not – with us into the virtual. Because at the end of the day, aren’t virtual environments like Second Life the ultimate doll’s house? Places where we can play dress-up, and make-believe, become what we wish – yet always carry with us that central essence of who we are? Are the not also a microcosm of life itself, in that howsoever we opt to utilise that trait we call “free will” does carry consequences, personal and potentially collective.

If one accepts this viewpoint, then might it not be fair to say that as well as an invitation to participate, Doll’s House is also presenting us with a very subtle mirrored glass rather than a simple lens; one that allows us to peek into Giovanna’s creativity whilst also seeing into our our lives and actions?

I’ll say nothing more, having possibly belaboured the point; but I do urge you to witness and consider Doll’s House for yourself, and for you to leave a word for Giovanna. Just take the teleporter from the gallery’s main landing point.

SLurl Details

• La Maisond’Aneli main landing point (Virtual Holland, rated Moderate)

 

I have long been an admirer of the work of Giovanna Cerise, a 3D artist with a remarkable talent for creating both individual pieces and entire installations that are evocative, rich in narrative and which are often founded upon or intertwine (or both) themes, narratives and ideas from the physical world to present them through the lens of her imagination.

Absent for a time from Second Life, Giovanna made her return in 2020, and since then has been working on a number of projects – both new and retrospective. Two of these projects opened on July 31st, 2021, and this being the case I make no apologies for this being the first of two articles covering her work that will be appearing in these pages over the next two days.

Sybil, presented at Museum Island, offers Giovanna’s interpretation of the Cumaean Sibyl (“prophetess”), who was said to reside near Cumae, the first Greek colony to be founded on the Italian mainland (and now found within the city of Naples). Her legend became a focus of early Roman history thanks to the writings of  Virgil (via his Aeneid VI), Ovid (in his Metamorphoses) and others.

In particular, Virgil’s tales of the Sybil (together with an anonymous author) refer to her living within an unusual cave, a trapezoidal passage over 130 metres in length cut into a hill, ending in a chamber. Here, according to Virgil, she would prophesise by “singing the fates”, then write the results on oak leaves, which she would leave at the entrance to the cave. It is this cave – or passage – which forms the core of Giovanna’s Sybil, its entrance forming the landing point, where can be found a brief introduction.

Red figures line the tunnel, mostly likely those seeking insight into their lives and future through the words of the Sybil, whilst at its centre, she awaits in her chamber, ready to offer you her cryptic advice – but be warned: the Sybil of Cumae was famous for her prophesies often having two meanings, depending on how one chose to read them…

 

Across the aisle from the crypt, is a statue of the Sybil, a somewhat ghostly form – reflective, perhaps on Ovid’s tale of her fate following her trickery with Apollo (and his with her). In return for allowing him to take her virginity, she asked him to grant her as long a life as the number of sand grains she could hold in one hand – only to then deny him once the wish was granted. Apollo, on the other hand, whilst granting her extraordinary longevity, did not also give her matching youth and health – because she did not ask for either. Thus, over time she aged, withered and faded, becoming a shadow, a voice in the darkness.

Along the hall containing the shadow sculpture of the Sybil are further pieces that both directly reference the Cumaean Sibyl – Enigma, referencing the duality of her words – and indirectly – Consumption, perhaps referencing the fact that we are all eventually consumed by the passage of time, just as the Sybil was in Ovid’s tale, and Illusion, which appears to reference the illusion of time’s own permanence. Then there is Lovers, perhaps representing the preciousness of life itself, and in taking what we are offered rather than losing it or wanting something more.

Fascinating, rich in meaning and visual, Sybil is another engaging trip into legends and tales by an artist who is superb in her ability to interpret and present.

SLurl Details

• Sybil by Giovanna Cerise (Museum Island, rated Moderate)