Three Questions, an exhibition by Joan Mayflower at her own new gallery space called Joanee’s Gallery, cleverly involves portraits and words in a revealing exhibition.
Set within a floating garden sitting against a backdrop of stars, Three Questions presents a series of eight avatar portraits – presumably of Joan’s friends – but that’s not all, as Joan explains.
The exhibit consists of portraits of Second Life avatars that I have done, accompanied by a set of three questions asked of each portrait subject. The questions/answers note cards are accessible by clicking on each portrait.
– Joan Mayflower, describing Three Questions
This makes Three Questions an intriguing exhibition, bringing together as it does two elements within each picture. On the one hand, Joan’s portraits of the avatars, each one of which has been carefully framed, cropped and presented, offer us insight into the subject of each portrait as an avatar. The answers to the questions, meanwhile – two of which are asked of all eight subjects, while the third varies from subject to subject – offer us insight into the personalities behind the avatars.
Thus, Three Questions engages and informs. Through the images and the answers to the questions, our visual appreciation of the portraits as an expression of the artist’s vision of the avatars she has captured, we’re also given that personal connection with the subjects themselves with a depth that cannot be achieved simply through images.
A small but engaging exhibition that offers good food for thought and engaging images, Three Questions officially opens at 12:00 noon SLT on August 5th, 2019.
Update, August 5th: Following the soft opening, Melusina and San are making changes to the exhibit and it appears the 3D elements of the image fames have been moved toe the rear of the image panels, so people see the “2D view” first, before walking around to see the faceted views.
Open at Ribong Gallery, curated by Santoshima, through August is Lonely Gazes, an exhibition of 24 images by Melusina Parkin, focusing on locations within Second Life.
Melusina is an artist whose work presents a fine blend of detail, space and minimalism, all carefully combined and crafted to present images that are elegant in their unique focus and rich in narrative and feeling. This is once again evident with this collection. However, within Lonely Gazes presents the 24 images in the most unique manner.
Each is framed as a photo-sculpture with two distinct sides. On the one (which tends to be facing the walls of the gallery, so may need a degree of camming unless you wall behind the displays) is a straightforward presentation of each of the image set against a black background.
On the other side of the frame is a further version of the image, overlaid with a truncated, transparent pyramid with either a smaller version of the image, or a “window” looking “in” to the image. The result of this is that the observer can select different angles from which to view the image: the smaller image sits proud of the larger, giving the impression it is being projected onto the background
Those with the “window” element, meanwhile offer a frame through which the observer’s focused can be drawn into a specific part of the image, which can shift as we cam around, as if examining the piece through a lens. In addition, the side faces of pyramid presents individual facets of the larger image.
I never cease to be drawn to Melusina’s work and the way her images allow us to become storytellers. They always present the idea that they are a part of a much broader canvas, one that extends well beyond their borders. Thus, they invite our imaginations to create stories around them. With the way in which the images in Lonely Gazes, this is magnified tremendously – in much the same way the faux 3D presentation of the pieces suggests we are viewing a magnified image of a picture on a lens hovering over that piece, or that we looking through a lens allowing us to focus into a specific part of the landscape and its story.
Visual, engaging and imaginative, Lonely Gazes is another extraordinary exhibition from Melusina, and there is a formal opening featuring DJ Kara Mellow at 14:00 SLT on Thursday, August 8th.
HollyWeird is the name Schmexysbuddy has given to his Homestead region of Hotel California.
This is a region that tends to change on a monthly basis, which keeps visits fresh and interesting. We first visited in April 2019 – see: Welcome to the Hotel California in Second Life – and while I try to avoid writing about a region again so close to having previously blogged on it, Schmexysbuddy’s August design is so out-of-the-ordinary, it deserves both a visit and a write-up.
There is no obvious theme to the region, which is one of the things that makes it intriguing. There is a reference to the name on which it draws on, with the appearance of the famous Hollywood hillside sign in the north-east corner of the region, complete with the relay tower rising behind it. But does that make it unique? Well no – until you consider the giant fox that’s leaping into the air beside it.
And that’s just the start. Travel the region and you’ll discover the remnants of a fun fair lying alongside a field of giant plastic flowers (where I’ve arbitrarily opted to set the SLurl in this article). This points the way into the region, passing two huge walls – and two even bigger clowns. Fortunately, the latter aren’t the, “just wait there while I sharpen my meat cleaver” type of clown – they are the genuine funny article. And if you touch one, he’ll happily play the maracas he’s holding, while the other will bang his snare drum.
The landscape itself maintains something of a thematic design with some of the past Hotel California designs by Schmexysbuddy: a semi-flooded and broken, complete with the ruins of buildings and elevated roads and a smattering of trees. Mixed within this are platforms topped by with the most unusual and garish buildings. They rise from the (shallow) waters like bizarre oil or gas platforms except where the former would have derricks rising from their backs, these have trees and windmills.
All of this makes HollyWeird immediately attractive – but there is far more. The fun fair, the platforms and the Hollywood sign and its fox form what are really mini-scenes within the region; vignettes if you will. And there are more to be found across the region, many of them focused on elements of art by the likes of Bryn Oh (including the flowers mentioned above), Cica Ghost and CioTToLiNa Xue.
There’s even a touch of science fiction and sci-fi movies that both folds into the Hollywood motif as well as standing on its own. This can be found to the south-west of the region, and includes “greys”, a flying spaceship, landed “flying saucer houses” and is completed by a collection of Cica Ghost’s characters either greeting or saying farewell to the ship overhead.
Most of the buildings and ruins within the region are empty – but make sure you visit the old theatre, as it sits partially flooded. This contains a beautiful and simple vignette of pieces by Bryn Oh.
It is this art content and the vignettes and motifs it brings with it that I find particularly attractive within the region – particularly the way in which the details can suddenly pop out where you least expect them. These, combined with the sheer unusualness of the region make it a genuinely unique setting that really draws visitors into it.
Our thanks to Shawn Shakespeare for the nudge about this update to Hotel California.
I recently received an invitation to visit Mon Joli Cadeau (“my lovely gift”), a quarter-region operated by Avalon Bouvier and Yoh Boa that offers mix of art, dance venue and commercial units in a distinctly French architectural style.
An urban environment, split by an east-west running canal, the street names within Mon Joli Cadeau suggest Paris, but the intended location is not as important as the overall look of the setting. The landing point sits to one side of the canal within a formal garden area surrounded on two sides by town houses with boutique-style units on their ground floors, and on the seaward side a large glass pavilion ballroom.
The boutiques offer a mix of commercial units and gallery spaces, and at the time of my visit, the gallery units featured the work of Carelyna, PatrickofIreland, MarcJersey and Erika Xaron. Meanwhile, across the canal and on the smaller part of the parcel offers further town house style gallery units.
At the time of my visit, these featured the work of Leonorah Beverly, Cybele Moon, Jolie Parfort, Kaleb Avedon (making his public début with a series of outstanding avatar studies) , Kayly Iali, CliveDillingham, Mirabelle Sweetwater and Isle Biedermann.
The layout of the location naturally encourages exploration, while within the boutique units and as well as presenting their art, the artists have been given the freedom to turn create more “personal” spaces if they so choose, adding their own interior wall panels and other features, making each a unique mini-gallery. Also be aware that many of the units have an upper floor where an exhibit may continue – so keep an eye out for the teleport disks tucked into some of them.
The range of art offered in this exhibition – which I understand run through until the end of August – is rich and engaging, including as it does avatar studies, Second life landscapes, physical world paintings, digital media, colour images, monochrome and SL photographs as paintings. This mixture adds a further attraction to Mon Joli Cadeau, and I’d urge Avalon and Yoh to try to continue it going forward.
As well as promoting visual arts, the region will also feature music – both gala events to mark the opening of new exhibitions and live music events and DJ evenings within the glass pavilion ballroom. Live performances are currently scheduled for the following dates (all times SLT):
Friday, August 16th from 12:00 noon: Savannah Rain
Thursday, September 12th from 19:00: Wolfie Starfire.
Saturday, September 14th, from 13:00: Kaleb Avedon.
In addition, Avalon is working on a weekly DJ schedule, which will initially focus on set running Thursdays through Sundays, likely spanning the hours of 16:00 through 22:00 SLT. The schedule has yet to be finalised, so look for details when visiting Mon Joli Cadeau, or make a note to join the local group and stay informed.
With its delightful design that includes several little corners waiting to be discovered as well as the galleries and ballroom, Mon Joli Cadeau offers a lot to artists wishing to exhibit their work (setting items for sale permitted but not required), and interested parties should contact Avalon in-world. For those who enjoy viewing art and photography in SL it is a venue that should definitely been added to lists of places to visit.
Grauland, July 2019 – click any image for full size
In March we visited Grauland, the homestead region held by JimGarand and home (in the sky) to his M-1 Art Poses (see: Art as a landscape in Second Life). At that time, I noted that the region was one of the more unusual design we had visited.
Since then, Jim has redesigned Grauland to present a new look and theme, as Shawn Shakespeare nudged me about. So we hopped back to take a look at how things have changed, and whether the beautiful minimalism and artistic expression that was so attractive in March has been retained.
Grauland, July 2019
In terms of the minimalism of the region, this is still very much still in evidence. Now forming a C-shaped island surrounding a shallow bay, Grauland is low-lying and marked by a handful of buildings, most of them looking somewhat the worse for wear. They are scattered around the open ring of the island in such as way as to encourage visitors to step out and explore.
There are some carry-overs which help give a feeling of continuity for those familiar with the March design: the basalt columns, so mindful of the Giant’s Causeway on Northern Ireland’s northern coast remain, for example. There are also touches that offer familiarity by with a twist, such as the ranks of rock-like rectangles marching ashore from the small centre islet of the bay. These echo the concrete cubes once present in the courtyard of the gallery from the March design.
Grauland, July 2019
The gallery itself is no more, sadly, but the buildings replacing it offer a curious mix. There’s a cannabis farm within one, another looks to be the remains of what might have been an industrial unit, filled with assorted detritus (including some with adult poses). Alongside the landing point there is what appears to be the skeleton of a theatre, bare stage with graffiti filled back wall, wooden seats still ranged before it, while elsewhere, smaller buildings simply offer views across the water, both within the bay and out to sea.
Other places to sit can also be found scatter across the landscape, including the little islet in the bay, reached via an ageing board walk. This offers a good view of the trawler edging its way into the bay, ready to manoeuvre between some of the rock pillars and come alongside the island’s single pier.
Grauland, July 2019
I confess to missing the slant towards accommodating art that was far more present in the March build, but there is no denying Grauland in this latest iteration offers many opportunities for photography, and for simply relaxing, be it on the beach or elsewhere.
No actual landing point is enforced, so I’ve arbitrarily set the SLurl in the piece to a point in the north-west of the region, simply because it is there that the region’s gust book Flickr link and primary tip jar can be found, and because it perhaps offers the best point from which to start exploring the region.
Grauland, July 2019
Finished with a sound scape that includes the cry of gulls as they circle overhead or vie for space on the beach and which is mixed with the softer song of birds (some of whom add their own splash of colour for those who look closely enough), together with the plaintive warning chimes of a buoy at the neck of the bay, Grauland retains its delightful minimalist feel whilst still offering a lot so see and take in.
Isla de Sol, July 2019 – click any image for full size
A little while ago I received an invitation from Noirran Marx to visit Isla de Sol, her Homestead region, which I gather is open to the public. It took a while for us to get there, but we did in July and found it to be a quiet, balmy tropical island that makes for an easy, gentle visit.
At the time we dropped in, the island offered a roughly north-south orientation, with the clearest signs of human habitation at the southern end, most notably in the form of a large house sitting within a low walled garden, with two trailer-style homes sitting close by under the boughs of tree that might be more at home in more northerly latitudes than suggested by the rest of the island’s styling.
To the north, the island is more open and tropical in looks. Grass sits under palm trees and a Greedy Greedy table sits bracketed between and old adobe building and the (rather incongruous) cone of a volcano that appears to be erupting…
The volcano forms the highest point within the region, but does tend to a look a little “glued on”, so to speak. To us, it was slightly jarring visual element in what otherwise is a pleasant low-lying island where the aforementioned Greedy Greedy can be enjoyed, and the outdoor decks offer places to sit, think, cuddle and / or chat.
So far as we could tell, the house is open to the public; there were certainly no security orb warnings on approach. It is cosily furnished, but the garden perhaps offers the best opportunities for those taken with photography.
Off to the west side of the island, behind the screen of fir trees, a four-legged platform rises from the shallows. A rusting lifeboat slide to one side of it suggests it might have once been some form of small drilling platform, but it is now given over to a shack in need of some renovation. The sea lions on the raft and rock below it don’t seem to mind its presence, tho.
Small, quirky and perhaps needing some of the bushes and plants to be made phantom (we bounced off of some of the palm trees while trying to pass under them!), Isla de Sol presents an easy visit for the beach inclined. There are opportunities for photography (rezzing is possible with a 5-minute auto-return) throughout, and it avails itself to a range of windlight options (I again used my default takes on Annan Adored’s End of Silence and Morning Dream in the four images here.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 