Category: Art in Second Life

Charlie’s reflections at Eulennest in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Eulennest Art Gallery: Charlie Namiboo

I first became acquainted with Charlie Namiboo as a result of her involvement in the (long since retired) Frisland region, which I had the pleasure of documenting in these pages on a number of occasions in 2015 / 2016.

Back then we did joke that we had something in common: she referred to herself a the Typo Queen, and I had a habit of wearing a tag that read Kween of Tpyoland. However, and to my shame, it was only later that I became familiar with her work as an extremely talented photographer. So, it’s with a great deal of pleasure that I’m able to write about her latest exhibition of work, which opened at the start of April at Kitten Mills’ Eulennest Art Gallery.

Well, so you asked me about my reasons why I started taking pictures. I guess, it was the same reason as many people have for their Flickr accounts. They simply take snaps of their second life to capture moments and make memories. When I explored places with my partner or had a special moment with him, I took snapshots.

– Charlie Namiboo on her work

Eulennest Art Gallery: Charlie Namiboo

The exhibition is offered without title, but I’ve taken the liberty of referring to it as “reflections” here, because it is the most marvellous selection of images that bring together elements of introspection and commentary on life.

Predominantly presented in black-and-white, these are pieces that are genuinely rich in narrative; more that a picture or image, they are the encapsulation of a thought, a feeling, or an emotion. Each one is perfectly framed and set to words.

I went through different phases; after pure (and very simple) fashion pictures, I fell for taking landscape themed pictures as regions and places became more and more attractive due to better landscape items. I worked with different windlight settings and also created my own when I found out that I was able to change the entire mood of a picture just by changing the windlight. And inspired by some of the greatest story tellers on Flickr, I started trying to tell my own short stories in a single picture.

– Charlie Namiboo

Viewing the pieces offered, it is clear that Charlies does more than just “try” to tell stories in her photographs – she does so quite magnificently. Each of the pieces included in this exhibition beats with a heart as it reveals a depth of soul. These are stories we can all relate to, touching on our own feelings and thought because they embody the things we have so often experienced. Also within them there is at least one challenge (so line on up, and take your place and show your face …), which has a particular depth of meaning in this day and age.

They are also, perhaps, personal reflections – if not on the things Charlie herself has experienced, then certainly on the depth of connection she has with her photography; a connection not only revealed by the images on display, but by the little vignettes of props she has included in the exhibition.

Eulennest Art Gallery: Charlie Namiboo

All told, a superb selection of pictures which I recommend to all patrons of Second Life arts.

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The remarkable art of Tucker Stilley in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Cape Able Art Gallery: Tucker Stilley – Palimpsessed

Commencing on Wednesday, April 7th, and running through until the end of May at the Cape Able Art Gallery is a most extraordinary exhibition of art from the physical world. Entitled Palimpsessed, it features the work of Tucker Stilley.

The exhibition is being hosted by Virtual Ability, who have worked in partnership with Tucker and his sister, filmmaker, editor, and producer Kate Stilley Steiner to bring the exhibition to Second Life, and I was invited by Gentle Heron of Virtual Ability to a preview of the exhibition ahead of the first of a series of special events that will accompany it.

Born in Santa Ana,  California in 1961, Tucker Stilley is a veteran intermedia artist and distinguished alumni of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where he was a member of the Studio for Interrelated Media. A leading member of the Boston arts community throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he has worked the MIT Media Lab, and with his partner Lindsay Mofford, in a range of environments – academia, technology , corporate, public – producing a broad range of art exhibited at the likes of the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, the Boston Film Foundation and Harvard University, as well as continuing to work with the “arts underground”.

Cape Able Art Gallery: Tucker Stilley – Palimpsessed

Now residing in Los Angeles, California, Tucker Stilley is now completely paralysed, the result of ALS/MND (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), with which he was first diagnosed in 2005. Nevertheless, he continues to create the most incredible art that is rich is substance.

He does so using his one means of communications, a hybrid computer he controls with his eyes and which allows him to essentially “live” within the world wide wide, remaining in contact with friends, colleagues and artistic collaborators, seeking inspiration and engaging in research.

Through this computer, and most recently using ophisticated generative software, Stilley literally pains with his eyes. The pieces he creates bring together a host of genres and styles – abstraction, post-modernism, conceptualism, touches of surrealism, collage, etching, and perhaps in places a hint of fauvism – in the most remarkable and fascinating of ways, all of which is demonstrated in the exhibition at Cape Able.  Within these pieces can be found simplicity and complexity of expression, hints of irony or whimsy.

Cape Able Art Gallery: Tucker Stilley – Palimpsessed

Palimpsessed can be further enjoyed every Wednesday through April and May 2021, when Cape Able Gallery will be hosting guided tours between 17:00and 19:00 SLT.

This is a genuinely extraordinary exhibition that is compact enough so as not to overwhelm, but rich enough to provide a look into the life and creativity of a most amazing artist and visionary.

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Bare Skin in Second Life (NSFW)

Posted on by Inara Pey
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Bare Skin – Traci Ultsch and Dido Haas

This is the first of planned two visits to Dido Haas’ Nitroglobus Roof Gallery for April – the second will come in about a week and feature the gallery’s April 2021 main exhibition. However, I wanted to jump over to see a new exhibition by Dido herself, together with Tracy Ultsch.

The images in Bare Skin – as noted in the title of this article – may not all be suitable for work viewing, dealing as they do with the subject of female nudity. However, this are not “simple” or “gratuitous” nudity; rather the pieces presented are a genuine celebration of the art and beauty to be found within the female form by two of Second Life’s most accomplished photo portrait artists.

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Bare Skin – Dido Haas

Located in the smaller gallery space at Nitroglobus, Bare Skin presents a total of eight monochrome images by Dido and Traci, who display four pieces each.  The two sets of pictures are most clearly differentiated by the fact that Traci’s work utilised a white background, and Dido’s a black backdrop. Both artists approach their work in a similar manner – none of the images feature any background elements distraction to clutter up each image, although props are used in some (notably a cat with some of Traci’s images) that add a sense of focus / narrative.

Whilst breasts and/or nether regions can be seen in some of the images, these are not – again as noted above – pictures intended to titillate in any way. Rather, through framing, pose and focus they encourage the observer to initially consider the inherent grace and lines of the female body,  be it is the rise and sweep of a breast, the arch of a foot, and gentle valley of waist between upper torso and hips – or even as a canvas on which to reflect creativity and expression through the wearing of jewellery or the inking of tattoos. But after this first inspection, there is more to be found.

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Bare Skin – Traci Ultsch

These are images that are both intrinsically feminine and beautiful layers in interpretation. Take Traci’s pieces for example. The use of the cat subliminally reminds of of female grace a poise – and also of a woman’s power. Just look at Cat Cat Cat; the kitty may well be stretching and yawning, but the entire image carries a marvellous subtext of I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar. Similarly, the use of tattoos speak both to the ideas of creativity and expressionism / individuality mentioned above, and also to ideas of tribalism –  and with it humanity’s long history; a history in which all successive generations have all be born of Woman.

Similarly, Dido’s images speak to grace and beauty – and also to confidence and power.  Within them lies a statement that women need not fear that their only value lies in their looks and figure, nor do they need to compete through trappings of power dressing in order to demonstrate male-like assertiveness. A woman’s power comes from within; it matters not whether she is dressed or naked – it is simply there, as natural and admirable as any line of mouth or curve of breast.

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Bare Skin – Traci Ultsch and Dido Haas

An engaging and visual mini-exhibition well worth taking the time to see.

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Visiting IMAGOLand’s new home in Second life

Posted on by Inara Pey
IMAGOLand, April 2021

I’ve been visiting Mareena Farrasco’s IMAGO art gallery in its various forms for the last few years (check the IMAGOLand tag  in this blog). However, and as Shawn Shakespeare recently reminded me, I haven’t dropped in to see it since Mareena relocated and expanded its offerings using her IMAGOLand title.

The new location continues to offer art exhibitions – the galleries now located in skyboxes, rather than using the ground level’s open spaces as once was the case for IMAGO. Waht’s more, they share the sky with a number of other public areas which are connected to the ground via a teleport network.

IMAGOLand, April 2021

The ground itself presents an open, low-lying island which is probably best thought of as offering a series of populated vignettes rather than having a contiguous theme stretching through it. There’s no set landing point, so I’ve arbitrarily selected a location nor far from the region’s centre, where sits a teleport disk and a directory of destinations (sit on the disk for the menu dialogue in order to TP rather than touching the directory).

Close by is one of the vignettes: an open-air dance floor and stage where an Animesh band is playing.  Most of them appear to be engaged in a ballad of some kind, although one of the guitarists looks as if she’s off in a hard rock / metal riff of her own!

IMAGOLand, April 2021

Beyond this stage lies a bar where patrons and staff are engaged in coming, greetings and reading – and thus the frame of the island is set: simply wander the landscape and you’ll come across much such settings, some large, others small. Some can be reached via the teleport system, but it’s honestly worth taking the time to wander on foot, as there are some that can be easily missed just hopping point-to-point. The use of static and Animesh NPCs helps to give the setting an interesting sense of life – particularly along the beach (although I wouldn’t recommend arguing with the seagulls laying claim to the little rowing boats – they are big enough to make their objections felt!).

When you feel you’ve seen all the ground has to offer, the teleport system can be used to reach the gallery spaces. At the time of my visit, these were home to exhibitions by Mareena and Carelyna (Carelyna Resident).

IMAGOLand Gallery #1: Mareena Farrasco – Painting the Summer

In Gallery 1, Mareena presents Painting the Summer, an utterly gorgeous collection of rendered paintings taken from around Second Life that capture the warmth and delight of slow summer days, both in subject and the muted tones used in their post-processing.

Looking through the images within the exhibition, I realised that Mareena and I are frequently drawn to similar focal points for our images – notably bicycles and rowing boats. However, Mareena has a superb talent not only for turning her images into watercolour-like works of art, she also frames them in a way that tells a story  – a technique I have yet to come anywhere near achieving; these are painting that you feel you could simply step into and explore, or join her as she sits or stands in contemplation within some of them.

IMAGOLand Gallery #1: Mareena Farrasco – Painting the Summer

Red Alert is the title of Carelyna’s striking and evocative exhibit, occupying the second gallery space and featuring 15 large format images together with a series of oversized props.

It may at first be difficult to assess whether there is a central theme within this selection that reaches beyond the predominant use of red within all of them. However, closer examination of each image together with its title helps crystallise the theme of danger  – hence Red Alert – each represents.

IMAGOLand Gallery#2: Carelyna – Red Alert

This danger spans the personal – as seen in the likes of Femme Flamme, with its essence of la femme fatale, Addiction, Alone With Myself with its suggestion of isolation and depression – to more global themes of concern such as global warming (Crying out for Rain and the Titular Red Alert) and ecological disaster (Burning Forest. some, like Never Enough…. appear to span both personal and global excesses (personal exemplified in the idea of spending too much time in the Sun; global suggested by the vivid red and the loss of our protective ozone).

Rendered in styles that range from painting to etching, and which mix elements of abstraction and expressionism, this is a genuinely stylish collection of images that can be appreciated both for the artistry involved in each piece and for the interweaving of ideas and expressions.

IMAGOLand Gallery#2: Carelyna – Red Alert
Beyond the galleries,the teleport network can also be used to reach a photographic studio(although props cannot be rezzed even by group members) and a little setting called Storyteller Burrow, which I admit I’m not clear on as to its purpose. These share the same platform with one another and a small club space, although the latter was not connected to the teleport system at the time of my visit., so many or may not be part of the main facilities within the region.

Art remains the primary attraction at IMAGOLand, although the ground level offers its own attractions as well. As such, I look forward to seeing what future exhibitions are unveiled here.

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Broken Mountain is rated Moderate.

Of Greece and Cats: Slatan Dryke at Kultivate

Posted on by Inara Pey
Kultivate Loft Gallery: Slatan Dryke, April 2021

I love to travel – not that I’ve had much of a chance to do so the last few years (even before the SARS-CoV-2 situation brought a halt to travelling around for just about all of us); I also have a love of cats (I’m the Chief Meal Giver and Dish Washer to two). So when an art exhibition combines both travel and cats, I’m going to hop along to take a look.

In My Greece, My Cats, open at the Kultivate Loft Gallery through most of April 2021, Slatan Dryke presents a personal series of images that document some of his travel to Greece over the years, revealing a place that has become one of his favourites – and introducing some of its feline denizens he came across during his visits.

Kultivate Loft Gallery: Slatan Dryke, April 2021

Slatan is perhaps best known for his in-world sculptures and his digital art, which have been displayed widely across the grid and been a signature part of many collaborative endeavours. His work is oft marked by the use of vibrant colours or deep tones that can give it an almost symphonic depth. However, with My Greece, My Cats, we have a dozen images in monochrome or with a lean into sepia that suggest a lightness of touch and more informal musicality, something totally in keeping with the nature of the country he is representing.

My love of Greece goes back to when I travelled there for the first time more than 40 years ago. My good fortune has been that Greece is a neighbouring country, allowing me to visit so many of its islands where the marrow of its culture and traditions has not changed in centuries.
[But] don’t ask me about the most fashionable locations, because I have never been to them. Ask me about those small islands where the time runs slowly under the shade of a tamarisk tree.

– Slatan Dryke on his love of Greece

Kultivate Loft Gallery: Slatan Dryke, April 2021

One place Slatan particularly fell in love with is the island of Astypalaia, one of the 12 members of the Dodecanese archipelago in the south Aegean Sea, and it is this that he celebrates within this exhibition.

With pieces finished as either photography or processed digital art, Slatan uses the exhibition to reveal the village of Astypalea (or Chora as it climbs one of Astypalaia’s craggy hills to where the imposing bulk of a stone castle sits, commanding a view on all sides. Castle and village are celebrated as a whole in three of the pictures in this exhibition, but so too are more personal aspects of the village and life there: the hand-written chalk menu at a café, the red-roofed barrels of old windmills that match along a street or a quiet place to sit at the water’s edge.

And, of course, there are the cats. As Slatan notes, no Greek village is complete without its local cats, and here he has magnificently captured them – including an endearing look at one cheeky little chappie peeking over a wall to see who dares disturb his rest…

Kultivate Loft Gallery: Slatan Dryke, April 2021

An engaging and charming exhibition that will more than likely have you wanting to visit Astypalaia – I’ve already added it to my itinerary of future visits!

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Geometry, water and the cosmos in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Kondor Art Centre: Nils Urqhart – The Beauty of Moving Water

Hermes Kondor is keeping busy in his work in making the Kondor Art Centre a hub of artistic expression  featuring 2D art from the physical world and 2D and 3D art from the the virtual. Over the course of the last month, three exhibitions have opened which, while I’ve visited all three, I’ve allowed to get stacked up within my backlog of blogging.

The longest-running of the three, and therefore the one I’ve getting to first – is another stunning exhibition of real world photography by Nils Urqhart. Famed for his photographs of the Alps and mountains of France, Nils here presents an engaging series entitled The Beauty of Moving Water, a collection of photographs featuring mountain streams, rapids and falls, all of which appear to have been taken in the spring months when winter meltwater was running free.

Kondor Art Centre: Nils Urqhart – The Beauty of Moving Water

Still these images may be, but in keeping with the title of the exhibit, each carries a tremendous sense of motion, from the foam kicked-up by a waters in spate striking mid-stream rocks or the way in which sunlight reflects off of water in a pond and highlight the splash of moss colouring the flanks of rocks or enhances the plants lining the banks of streams.

And, of course there is a sense of life and motion present in every photo – from the afore mentioned above to the the rush and fall of water down sheer or steps faces of rock.  It reminds us of both the importance of water to life here on the planet and also its power: water doesn’t just flow over rock, it shapes and sculpts it over time, smoothing rough and points edges to smooth curves, carving the land, allowing life to flourish around it. Thus through these pieces we witness the full beauty of nature.

Kondor Art Centre: Aneli Abeyante

Located in the Kondor White Gallery is another exhibition focused on motion – albeit it very different in content and design. Untitled, it focuses on digital art of a most hypnotic form, created by Aneli Abeyante, who might be better know for running her own gallery, La Maison d’Aneli, a place I’ve had the the privilege of visiting and writing about on many occasions.

However, Aneli is an accomplished artist in her own right – although the exhibition at the Kondor White Gallery is something of a departure for her, as she explains in her introduction to the exhibit:

I love geometry and mathematics. So after much practice, I managed to create structures and shapes.

– Aneli Abeyante

Thus we are presented with a series of images that hold within them a mathematical form and beauty that is captivating  – and given an even greater sense of form through the use of animations that gives them their motion and life  – and their rich hypnotic forms. These are pieces one can easily get lost within by following their lines and patterns and letting their shifting forms wash over thoughts.

They share the two levels of the gallery with static paintings that are equally marvellous digital abstractions.  Whilst they don’t have the same physical motion  as the animated works, they are still as engaging, drawing the eye to them.

There is something more here as well. In her art, she strives to achieve a harmony of ideas and an balance of expression – and this is perfectly exemplified in this series and then manner in which static and mobile pieces both counterpoint and synchronise together into a unified selection of expressive art.

Kondor Art Centre: Aneli Abeyante

The third exhibition I’m covering is by Hermes himself, and is to be found in the centre’s Into the Future Gallery.

The Explorers offers a three-part story of exploration and discovery utilising digital art. It starts on the ground floor and an unspecified point in the future, a time when humanity is clearly capable of exploring the realms beyond out Earth-Moon system in person – although looking at the style of their space suits, it is perhaps not a time too far into the future.

This story invites us to travel with a team of astronauts as they explore a moon or asteroid, discovering clear evidence of alien life as they do so. Each piece, beautiful rendered, allows us to share in their discovery of strange crystalline forms and what appear to be machines and – perhaps – a portal revealing an alien world.

Kondor Art Centre: Hrmes Kondor – The Explorers

The story continues on the gallery’s mid-level which can be reached via the teleport disk on the lower floor or the elevator at the back of the gallery space – the images in front of the doors are phantom, so you can pass through them. Here, we find the explorers appear to have used the portal and are now another place, one in which they encounter life in a variety of forms – strange growths, egg-like objects and what might be plants that use a form of photosynthesis and  more.

On the upper level, again reached via teleport disk or elevator, we share with the travellers as they encounter life and civilisation directly – but in forms that are intriguing and recognisable: trees and humanoid forms – and a young child on a swing.

What we’re to make of this is down to our own imaginations;  but perhaps it is a message that all life which may exist within the cosmos is connected to us and we to it, wherever we might come to find it and whatever form it might take.

Kondor Art Centre: Hrmes Kondor – The Explorers

Three very different exhibitions, all connected by threads of life, colour and motion. whether appreciated individually or in turn as part of a single visit to the Kondor Art Centre, these are three exhibitions by three superb artists that fully deserve our time and attention.

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Waka is rated a Moderate region.