The Annex, Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, April 2025: Polly Reina – Just Polly
As I work to catch up on blogging – the last week or so having been focused on building-out an island home for a very dear and close friend – I’ve found I’ve a wealth of exhibitions demanding my attention. As such, I cannot promise to get to them all before they close, but I’m going to start here with a look at a first-time public exhibition for someone who have been involved in Second Life for many years, but who has only now been encouraged to display her avatar-centric photography.
As ever, that encouragement has come from Dido Haas, owner and curator of Nitroglobus Roof Gallery. Dido has a natural talent for – if not discovering, then certainly gently encouraging – artist who have never previously exhibited their work in-world to an audience of strangers to a point where they are comfortable with the idea of doing so.
The Annex, Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, April 2025: Polly Reina – Just Polly
The artist in question here is Polly Reina, at the time of writing a 17+ year veteran of Second Life. Polly has been involved in Flickr since 2010, and her photography, whilst avatar-centric, also folds into landscapes – notably of Tempura Island, where she is also an estate officer -, whilst also flowing from colour to monochrome collections and pieces and back.
With Just Polly, which is being hosted within The Annex at Nitroglobus, we have a thoroughly engaging collection of Polly’s monochrome self-studies, each one genuinely rich in narrative whilst also highly persona, offering a depth of emotions, moods and self-awareness that is utterly captivating. Whilst I could witter on at length and it, I’ll instead allow Polly to describe the collection in her own succinct words:
This exhibition is not just about capturing an image; it’s about feeling it … an intimate journey of self-representation in Second Life, translating emotions, moods, and identity into this space … where each image is a reflection of feeling, movement, and presence, brought to life … This showcase is not just about visual aesthetics but about the silent dialogue between self-perception and my expression. It’s about stepping into different versions of myself, embracing vulnerability, confidence, and the unspoken emotions woven into every image.
– Polly Reina
The Annex, Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, April 2025: Polly Reina – Just Polly
Thus, what we have here is a series of images which reveal so much through the selection of poses, camera angles and focus. Each of them carry a beautiful transposition of the thoughts, the emotions and feeling of the very real person behind the lens of the camera; a person who genuinely sees her avatar not as an expression of whom she might like to be (as can so often be the case in our relationships with our avatars) or a character intended to fulfil a role, but as an extension of who she is within the physical world.
These are piece that will fully and naturally speak to all of us who view our avatars the same way as Polly whilst at the same time offering a masterclass in photographic composition and the power of black-and-white to convey the artist’s thoughts for those who also enjoy photography from a technical as well as artistic perspective.
The Annex, Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, April 2025: Polly Reina – Just Polly
Given this, Just Polly is both personal and highly accessible – and as such, I’ll spare you any further blithering on my part here, and earnestly encourage you to pay Just Polly a visit.
I have a genuine love of poetry; be it Wordsworth, Shakespeare’s sonnets, Poe’s laments, T.S. Eliot’s journeys in verse, or evocative pieces from the likes of Masefield (Sea Fever) or William Blake’s The Tyger.
Both of the latter are perhaps populist pieces; there are few, if any, lovers of poetry who cannot quote at least their opening lines. However, both contain a wealth of imagery and a depth of reflection on life – something often missed when reading either, such is the strength of the overlying imagery within them.
Of the two, Blake’s the Tyger is perhaps the more structurally and visually impressive, mixing as it does trochaic tetrameter and iambic tetrameter, alliteration and focused imagery, whilst also containing a deeper questioning which reaches beyond its own form, notably in reference to its “sister” (and potentially less well-known) piece The Lamb.
The Tyger is also the subject of a new poetic experience by the master of visual poetry in Second Life, Sheldon Bergman (SheldonBR).
I’ve covered Sheldon’s work in this pages, both in its own right, and with regards to his collaborations with Angelika Corrall, both as artists at and curators of, the former DaphneArts Gallery in Second Life. As such, I was delighted to receive a personal invitation from Sheldon to visit The Tyger, and took the first opportunity I could to immerse myself within it.
Now, when I say poetic experience with regards to Sheldon’s work, I mean just that; The Tyger is powered by a Second Life Experience, and it is essential you accept it on arrival at the installation if you are to proceed further, and then ensure your viewer is set as instructed in the pop-up (with the caveat that you only perhaps need to set Advanced Light Model (Preferences → Graphics) if you are running a non-PBR capable viewer and don’t run ALM as standard). Once you are set, click the Continue option on the HUD pop-up to deliver you to the installation proper.
The Tyger, Sheldon Bergman, April 2025
A quick point of none here is that your screen will go into a “letterbox” display format, courtesy of the HUD – and it is essential you should leave it in place. A second note here is that I’m not going to go into a deeply analytical piece on Blake’s works, by they The Tyger, The Lamb, or the volumes from which they are drawn (Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience), nor am I going to dwell overlong on Blake’s use of The Tyger as an exploration and questioning of 18th/19th century Christian religious paradigms. While these all fold into Sheldon’s The Tyger, they have all been written about extensively elsewhere.
Rather, what I will do here is offer thoughts on what appears to be a much broader canvas on which Sheldon paints, using The Tyger and its religious reflections as his foundation; a canvas which – to me at least – appears to offer thoughts not so much on our relationship with God, but our place within, and relationship as a whole with, the cosmos around us.
The installation initially begins within a twilight setting, at one end of a path formed by the waters of a stream rushing outwards from high waterfalls. The watery path is lit at intervals by pairs of candles, one to each bank. As well as lighting the way, they perhaps suggest the opening line of the poem and the flashes of colour one might see of a tiger passing through the shadows of the jungle. However, of more practical tone-setting (to my way of thinking, at least), is the initial quote offered by the HUD on arrival:
The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
– John Muir, environmentalist and philosopher
The Tyger, Sheldon Bergman, April 2025
This offers an intrinsic link between Sheldon’s use of the poem and its ability to question Christian tenets and paradigms with his broader theme as intuited above. One which grows as we follow the watery path as it travels through the gorge its has cut (symbolic, perhaps of the path we cut through life?) before the water turns to the left and enters a broad pool, and the visitor is left facing the open maw of a tunnel.
This opening, into which the flicking eyes of the candles lead us, is prefaced with a quote oft attributed to Joseph Campbell (although so far as I’m aware is not something he wrote):
The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek
It’s a statement that potentially takes us in several directions: caves can be thought of of dangerous and the home of predators; thus we remain rooted somewhat in the poem: whilst not a cave dweller itself, the tiger is perhaps the apex predator among land animals today. Further, caves can represent a journey into darkness and the unknown – just as life itself is a daily journey into the unknown; just as we have no idea what awaits at the end of our walk through the tunnel, we cannot comprehend what awaits at the end of our journey through life. Might it be the “treasure” of the kingdom of heaven as Christianity and its ilk would have us believe? Or might it be a quiet return to the nothingness of the Cosmos which, ultimately, birthed us?
Within Sheldon’s tunnel we have the opportunity to reflect both on Christian thinking – and the joining of Blake’s The Tyger with The Lamb – complete with the opening lines of the latter (look for the side tunnel after passing the seaward opening in the tunnel walls). This is itself a layers element within the installation, encouraging us to consider Christian tenets (the Lamb of God, the Christian flock, etc.), whilst also underscoring Blake’s reflections on God’s apparently capricious nature as the creator of both the defenceless lamb and the deadly tiger:
When the stars threw down their spears, And water’d heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
The Tyger, Sheldon Bergman, April 2025
It is also here – or at least, a little further down the tunnel – that the installation opens more fully onto questions of our place in the universe, starting with a further quote. This one from one of the great thinkers of the 20th century (and one of my heroes), Carl Sagan. It is a image he used a number of times in his writings, but it appears here in what is perhaps its most widely-quoted form:
The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.
Carl Sagan, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage: The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean (1980)
It is a quote that leads us, figuratively and literally, to a god’s-eye view of a spinning galaxy, a further marvellous metaphor and visual prompt for all that we might ascribe to Sheldon’s installation. It is also the perfect means to embody our unity with the universe, because to proceed, we must step through it.
The Tyger, Sheldon Bergman, April 2025
To do so is to enter the core of The Tyger, a space filled with the most incredible symbolism, questioning and statements for those willing to listen. From a vocal rendition of Blake’s poem, through the use of the Lacrimosa from Zbignew Preisner’s Requiem for My Friend (1998) to the lifting of the veil of blackness and revelation of Sheldon’s floating Tyger and its potential for layered interpretation, it is utterly breath-taking.
To itemise in words the richness and depth of all that’s offered here – from the poem, through the particular selection of Preisner’s Lacrimosa (hint: the piece has perhaps most memorably used to overlay the birth of the universe at the start if The Tree of Life, and we are perhaps particularly focused on the cosmos within this space) as well as its role within Zbignew’s Requiem (and indeed, the Catholic Requiem mass as a whole) to the presence of the floating Tyger and all that surrounds it – would be to defeat the purpose of the installation’s purpose.
Instead, I urge you to go and witness it; immerse yourself in The Tyger, its imagery, the richness of the poem itself and of Sheldon’s installation, and allow it to speak to you directly. It is magnificent.
Having written the title to this piece, I realised that it could just as easily be “Cica’s Playground IS Second Life”, because for well over a decade now, Cica Ghost has been presenting 3D art installations within Second Life – and has been doing so monthly for the last few years.
As a result she has, and continues to, present a wide range of environments and settings, many of them more-or-less entirely whimsical, some of them wonderfully layered, offering views of folk tales or myths or ideas with a depth of perception and evocation which have never failed to inspire. Throughout much of her work there is a simple statement of joy in life, and it is this, as much as everything else she carefully wraps in her installations which has made me a long-time fan of her work, and why I have always tried to cover her installations in these pages, collecting them under my Cica Ghost tag.
Cica Ghost, March 2025: Playground
One of the first of Cica’s builds I both saw and wrote about was Ghostville, a 3D village inhabited by Cica’s (already by then) famous animated stick figures (see: A short stay in Ghostville). It was a wonderful experience, and led to further encounters with her little people in installations such as The Visitors, which made marvellous use of the pre-existing (but long since sadly departed from Second Life) art venue of La Città Perduta, aka The Lost City (see Visiting the Visitors).
I mention all of this because within Playground, which opened on March 25th, 2025, there is something of a nod towards those wonderfully animated stick figures, together with a range of other 2D elements offering memories of some of Cica’s past creatures and creations. They sit within a village-like environment which might also be regarded as an avant-garde playground (given everything appears to be made of carboard, adding to the playtime like feel) in which new 3D creatures bot large and small and quite wondrous in their respective forms might be found. I loved them all but the almost Yaphit-like pair brought a particular smile to my face – but that’s purely the sci-fi nerd in me!
Cica Ghost, March 2025: Playground
Such is the jollity here that even stars appear to have sprung from the ground along with flowers and clover, bopping to an unheard melody (there is an audio stream, but I preferred to keep it turned off) as much as some of the painted creatures and the various Cicas awaiting discovery.
The potential call-outs to many of Cica’s past design might be pointed to by fans of Cica’s work; however, whether they are intentional or not, I’ve no idea. This being the case I’ll leave it to people to decide for themselves, because I don’t want to give the impression this is a place that cannot be enjoyed in its own right or is in any way some form of intentional retrospective – it is not; it is simply that there are a lot of perfect little bells that might chime for some in visiting, but which also do not diminish Playground in any way if they pass unheard.
Cica Ghost, March 2025: Playground
As is common with Cica’s build, visitors can join in with the fun via dancing, while the particularly energetic can jump up onto one of the local flying saucers and help keep them spinning (and flying?). These are not the only way to get airborne – hidden in plain sight is the means to bring out your inner Supergirl / Superman – but you can find that on your own 😀 . For those seeking a little rest afterwards (or perhaps a mug of 2D coffee!) there are various places to set down and recover.
IMAGO Art Galleries, March 2025: Scylla Rhiadra – Almost
Philosophy and art can make for an interesting coupling; on the one hand, philosophy can trigger an artistic response that in turn might serve to illustrate the central thesis being discussed; on the other, art triggered by a philosophical precept can go on to spur thinking and reflection which can reach beyond the original focus of both the art and / or the precept it initially illustrated.
Such is the case with Scylla Rhiadra’s Almost, a compelling series of pieces of art with accompanying textual extracts (often a common element within Scylla’s work), which opened to public display on March 20th, 2025 at Mareea Farrasco’s IMAGO Art Galleries.
As I’ve noted in covering past exhibitions of her work, Scylla is one of the most gifted communicators in Second Life; her ability to to use art to convey ideas, feelings, realities and truths, and/or to expose concepts and ideas and encourage the grey stuff between the ears to fire on all available cylinders, is second to none. Nor is she unfamiliar with building upon philosophical thinking to explore our notions of what it is to be human, to live, to move through life; in this I would point to Swerve, her exhibition from 2024 which grew out of reflections on atomism as prompted by Titus Lucretius Carus (see Scylla’s Swerve at Nitroglobus in Second Life for more).
IMAGO Art Galleries, March 2025: Scylla Rhiadra – Almost
Within Almost she takes as her seed the work of the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea – specifically one of his Paradoxes of Motion (which are perhaps the most well-known of his paradoxes), which Scylla refers to as his “Atalanta Paradox”, but which is perhaps better know as the Dichotomy Argument.
In this Zeno asks us to imagine the Greek heroine and athlete running half the distance to a finishing line, and then requires us to notionally half the remaining distance and time again, and again, and again, ad infinitum. The “logical” and mathematically “provable” corollary of this exercise is the realization that the runner will never reach her goal; she will merely get closer and closer, by smaller and smaller spatial and temporal increments.
– Scylla Rhiadra, introducing Almost
IMAGO Art Galleries, March 2025: Scylla Rhiadra – Almost
The Dichotomy Argument, together with Achilles and the Tortoise and Zeno’s Arrow Paradox are regarded as such because between them, they postulate that everything is, to all intents a purposes, motionless. Atalanta can never finish her race; Achilles can never catch the tortoise, that at any given point in its flight, the arrow is in fact standing still. Not only does this mean the races / arrow flight can never be completed – they can never actually commence – which is clearly a logical fallacy, given they can and do. This fallacy offers some interesting lines of thinking, as Scylla goes on to note:
I found the concept an interesting metaphorical approach to understanding what it means to be “human,” existing in real time and space. In some ways, we are always “almost” something or another, in part because we are always in the process of becoming — of “almost” being someone or somewhere else — and because it is a fundamental condition of human existence that we never achieve an ultimate, absolute state.
– Scylla Rhiadra, introducing Almost
Thus, within this series, Scylla presents images which explore the dichotomy created within Zeno’s paradoxes in a highly visual manner. Each offers a complete story on the human condition within its frame, whilst simultaneously presenting the potential for much broader narratives.
IMAGO Art Galleries, March 2025: Scylla Rhiadra – Almost
In this they are like Atalanta’s race – just as they almost present a “finished” image and idea, so to do they hint at a further measure of consideration, a further line of narrative, drawing the imagination onwards towards a line of “understanding” we never quite reach as we constantly re-evaluate what we are seeing within each image as our view shifts and changes both in light of our emotional state / mental processes and in reaction to reading the text accompanying each piece.
And it is in the textual excerpts that Scylla again teases; whilst they might almost illuminate an image in terms of a single point of understanding, so do they also open doors on to new avenues – or corridors, as Scylla puts it – of thinking and reaction, which can themselves subdivide further than further the more we dwell on what the text might say / mean and what might have motivated its selection.
IMAGO Art Galleries, March 2025: Scylla Rhiadra – Almost
This makes Almost wonderfully subjective – perhaps “personal” might be a better term; there is no single “given” within any single image or its text. Instead there are layers of potential that might be peeled away as each piece and its companion words are examined and considered, very much informed by the feelings and thoughts we bring to them as much as by the scenes they capture. A magnificent and deeply engaging series rich in interpretation from one of Second Life’s most engaging photographic artists.
Kondor Arts Centre, March 2025: Duraya – I See People
The term “AI art” can tend to be a barbed one. There are understandable – and in my view valid – ethical concerns surrounding AI-generated art, and the fact that many of the models which power the generative tools behind AI art are trained using copyrighted material often without the consent or compensation of the original artists. Indeed, when it comes to matters of copyright, David Holz, creator of Midjourney has shown scant regard for the concept when interviewed – and he is far from alone.
However, the flip side to this – and without wanting to get overly caught within convoluted ethical discussions – there is a case to be made for the fact that when used correctly, AI tools can be a useful means of enhancing an artist’s creativity; the use of algorithms and prompts to manipulate and build on pieces of and artist’s original pieces, enabling them to create something new – and possibly surprising.
Kondor Arts Centre, March 2025: Duraya – I See People
Such considered, curated use can result in extraordinary art; and such is the case with I See People, an exhibition of original art by Duraya, now on display through March / April at the Kondor Art Club, curated by Hermes Kondor and forming part of the Kondor Arts hub.
This is a series of engaging studies of “people”, some drawn / painted by Duraya, others (I believe) photographs of her avatar. All have been subject to AI treatment at Duraya’s command to produce the finished result. All are rich in detail and – perhaps surprisingly to some – rich in emotion / sentiment.
Kondor Arts Centre, March 2025: Duraya – I See People
When I first got in contact with AI I thought ‘huh, everyone can click around a bit to get fantastic results, what a cheat’. It’s true in a way. But if you learn to ‘tame the beast’ and understand how to ride it it’s a fantastic addition to creation like all the post procession devices.
My AI-edited pictures are all based on my own work, playing with prompts, settings and images until I get the result I want, thus accomplishing a mixture of reality and virtuality, sometimes with a little surprising twist.
– Duraya, discussing her AI-assisted art
These are genuinely individual pieces strong in narrative, presenting many aspects of the human condition – from the trials of life on the personal level: dealing with loneliness, our natural curiosity, the realities of aging, and so on; through to matters that might be seen as more global issues, worries and conditions that challenge us both individually and as a society. Their depth is further enhanced by the styles and approaches Duraya has employed to give them both a sense of of individuality as well as allowing them to be defined – in some cases – thematically as well.
Kondor Arts Centre, March 2025: Duraya – I See People
And in returning to my opening comments, they might well help alter perceptions about the considered and restrained use of AI as a tool for creativity, rather than purely within those terms which leave us unable to see it as anything other than a negative influence.
Kultivate Magazine – Windlight Gallery, March 2025
It’s been a while since I’ve covered an art exhibition at Kultivate Magazine’s gallery spaces. Indeed, it’s been so long that the gallery spaces themselves have been remodelled in the intervening time; rather than occupying three separate buildings within the the half of the Kultivate region devoted to art exhibitions (the other half of the region being devoted to Kultivate events), the indoor gallery spaces – Windlight, Edge and Signature – have been combined into conjoined halls within a single building.
This change means that viewing the different exhibitions within the thee indoor gallery spaces is move fluid, with visitors far more likely to take all of them in than might have previously been the case, wherein visitors may have obtained the landmark / SLurl to one of the three galleries possibly at the expense of the other two. It also means that within this article, I get to offer information on three exhibitions rather than just one, and hopefully encourage you to visit all three.
Kultivate Magazine – Windlight Gallery, March 2025 – Milly Sharple
The first of these exhibitions is the most recent to open (March 16th, 2025) and within the Windlight hall. Simply entitled the March Exhibition, and features the work of thirteen artists, with a lean towards Second Life landscape pieces, with digital art mixed into it. the layout of the gallery space allows each artiest to have a clearly defined space in which to display their work, each with the name of the artist clearly displayed and with the ability to offer a biography included as well.
These artists are: AuraLux, Alex Riverstone (Alex44 Riverstone), Dante Helios (Dantelios), Flicker Bayn, Hadiya Draper, Harlo Jamison (HarlowJamison), Jamee (Jamee Sandalwood), John (Johannes Huntsman), Milly Sharple, Myra Wildmist, Pi (Piggs Boucher), Rosie Riverstone (YsabellaRose), and Sheba Blitz. Together, and even with the lean towards SL landscapes, they offer a rich mix of art and approaches to their work, with the digital pieces from the likes of Milly (an artist whose work I particularly appreciate!) and Hadiya (to name two in the exhibition), again showing how SL can be used to bring art created in the physical world to a much broader audience than might otherwise be the case.
Kultivate Magazine – Edge Gallery
Three of the artists featured in the Windlight March 2025 exhibition can also be found within the Edge gallery hall. The Edge gallery is specifically reserved for black-and-white art, and at the time of my visit featured an engaging mix of SL landscapes and avatar studies with a touch of physical world art.
The three artists found both within the Edge exhibition (the title of which I do not have) and the Windlight hall, are AuraLux, Alex Riverstone (Alex44 Riverstone) and John (Johannes Huntsman). They are joined by Chic Aeon, Meycy (Meycy Bailey), Tempest Rosca, and Vee (Veruca Tammas). Again, all of the pieces are visually engaging, but I admit to having been particularly drawn to Tempest’s triptych-like series of black-and-white photographs from the physical world.
Kultivate Magazine – Edge Gallery – Tempest Rosca
Facing the Edge gallery on the other side of the Windlight Hall is a smaller Signature Gallery hall which, at the time of my visit was hosting Expressions, a collection of themed abstract paintings by John (Johannes Huntsman) – who is, along with Tempest Rosca – the owner / operator of the Kultivate Galleries.
Expressions might be seen as a series of four sets of images, each of four individual pieces each, all of which are presented in predominantly primary colours – red, blue, yellow – with some of the pieces / sets mixing into themselves elements of secondary colours and tones present in some to present further colour and visual depth. Such is the thematic use of colours within the pieces, they stand as individual pieces suitable for hanging at home, or as complete sets or even mix-and-match sets.
Kultivate Magazine, Signature Gallery, March 2025 – Johannes Huntsman
The exhibitions for the price of one teleport – and all worth the time to visit.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 