Category: Reviews

MC Grafite is a relative newcomer to Second Life, having joined the platform just five months ago. However, at 13:00 SLT, on Tuesday 13th December, she is opening her new gallery featuring her work (and only the second time she has publicly exhibited her art!). I took the opportunity to drop in ahead of the opening, while MC was still setting up to gain something of a sneak peek.

Also known as Marisa Camelo, MC is an artist in the physical world focusing on pencil-based drawings. She notes she spends around nine or ten hours a day drawing, her work covering a range of topics, including portraiture, animals and wildlife, costumes, tattoo designs, cars, and more.  And if I were to try to define her art in a single word or phrase, it would be: striking.

Within a simple, but effective gallery setting of stone pillars and plain white walls, MC presents a broad portfolio of her work, from simple-looking sketches, located outside of the main entrance in an enclosed courtyard, through to a series of exquisite set of white-on-black images of quite exceptional beauty and depth.

Her portraiture is also shown, within pictures of actors, celebrities and film and literature characters mounted on the rear walls of the gallery. I admit that her Baby Groot (Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2) and her It immediately drew my eyes to them. Both capture the vitality and mischief inherent in the first, and the sheer malevolence of the second quite perfectly. I found Eye, located directly beneath It equally mesmerizing  – although this should not be taken to mean there is anything lacking in the remaining portraits; quite the reverse in fact: each has its own unique attraction.

But I must admit to being completely captivated by the etching-like black-on white pieces she presents; there is something about this approach to art that I’ve always found enamouring, and the pieces MC offers are stunning in their presentation and beauty. As a cat lover, Cat Reflex and Cat in the Moonlight simply (both seen in the image at the top of this article) entranced me.

Further pieces are available on the upper mezzanine of the gallery, one or two of which might be considered NSFW. However, as MC was still setting-up on the upper floor when I visited, I only had a quick cam up to it, in order to avoid disturbing her too much.

As well as her own art, MC also offers a commissioned art service. Details of this can be found via the information givers located next to one of the stairways leading up to the Mezzanine level.

The gallery officially opens at 13:00 SLT on Tuesday, December 18th, 2018, as noted. But whether you can make the opening or not, I do recommend the MC Grafite Gallery as well worth a visit.

SLurl Details

• MC Grafite Gallery (Samoa, rated: General)

CybeleMoon (Hana Hoobinoo) is without doubt one of the most expressive fantasy artists in Second Life. Her art has a unique beauty that I consider to be unsurpassed in its depth and narrative; pieces that are hauntingly fascinating, encapsulating worlds of wonder and mystery or reflecting wonderment and innocence through portrait and study.

You can witness for yourself just how evocative and engaging her art is by visiting Tales of A Winter Sun, which officially opens at 12:00 noon SLT on Saturday, December 14th, 2018  at the Paris Metro Art Gallery. I was able to visit the exhibition ahead of the opening, and it truly is a delight.

Tales of a Winter Sun is actually something of a three-part exhibition. There is Cybele’s art, 20 images and a central mural type display; then there is a poem by Cybele, reflective of the art and of the season (available by clicking the information board at the lading point), and also a blog post she provides on her website.

There is a time in the hushed solitudes of falling winter,
while the dreaming earth stirs softly beneath her frosted blanket,
where for a moment, we remember innocence and magic, and the incredible awe of being,
where hope is renewed in the lighting of candles and a star leads the way to Bethlehem,
Where grievances are put aside as we open our wounded hearts to receive the seeds of rebirth
Where my own dreams flow to the sacred music of haunted woodlands and enchanted children.
and old tales are retold with feasting and friends
where the lost are found and the poor are blessed
and where angels walk among us

– CybeleMoon

Reflective of the theme and the season, the 20 images offer us 20 twenty stories – some quite literally so, should you touch them – each beautifully encapsulated in a single moment.

It is this feeling of capturing a moment that is particularly attractive about Cybele’s work. Her pieces are incredibly intricate in form and construction, the balance of light, colour, focus and theme utterly sublime; where looking at her art, I cannot help but see them in terms of an orchestra, different elements and layers, skilfully woven into a whole under the guiding hands of the conductor – or in this case the artist.

Yet, at the same time, there is a marvellous sense that each piece, far from being composed, has been captured in a fleeing moment, as if the mind has taken a snapshot of a dream or the eye a single moment of time played out before us in a world where wonder, innocence and beauty define all we see, and perhaps say and do.

Some might accuse me of waxing lyrical or of using hyperbole in writing like this – but unless you’ve seen Cybele’s work first-hand, it is hard to grasp just how rich, resonant and alive her art really is. As such, I urge you to go and witness Tales of a Winter Sun for yourself – you will not be disappointed.

In the meantime, and as she references it in her own blog post, I’ll leave you with an astonishing rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah by Rhema Marvanne, and recorded when she was just eight years old, and which sits as a perfect companion to the art Cybele presents in both the exhibition and her blog post.

SLurl Details

• Tales of a Winter Sun, Paris Metro Art Gallery (Paris Couture, rated: Moderate)

Now open at La Maison d’Aneli Gallery, curated by Aneli Abeyante, is a new ensemble art exhibition, one which offers a rich mix of virtual and physical art and photography in what is an eclectic but engaging display. On offer are pieces by  Lam Erin, Renoir Adder, Bump Squeegee, Layachi Ihnen, Chapichapo Delvalle and the inimitable Moya Patrick (Moya Janus).

For those unfamiliar with Moya (Patrick Moya in the physical world), he has been a part of the artistic movement Ecole de Nice, and throughout his career has been as the forefront of artistic expression through all forms of media and technology, including virtual spaces. He is an early pioneer of video art, and was quickly drawn to the potential of virtual spaces like Second Life, in which he has been involved since 2007 and where he continues to maintain his Moya estate of four regions. He was also one of the first artists to actively promote Second Life in the physical world, with Rinascimento Virtuale, hosted by the museum of Anthropology of Florence, in 2009.

Entitled Carnaval et fêtes populaires (literally “Carnival and popular festivals”, but given the English title “Carnival and popular traditions” in English), it is a typical piece from Moya, full of vitality, reflecting elements of his physical world art. Within it is – as one would expect – his alter-ego of Moya, familiar by his Pinocchio-like nose, and little Dolly, inspired by the cloned sheep of the same name. Frivolous, engaging, with some subtle motifs, Carnaval et fêtes populaires is a colourful piece, well in keeping with the time of the year.

Below it, on the lower floor of the gallery are three exhibition spaces presenting the physical world art of three very different artists: Renoir Adder, Layachi Ihnen and Bump Squeegee.

I confess to being unfamiliar with Layachi’s art, which is offered here as the largest of the three displays. A profession of mathematics, Layachi started painting in 1969, and since 1999 has focused on mixed media, combining digital painting on computer with traditional techniques. For this exhibition, he presents pieces that reflect this mixing – notes the faces in many of the paintings -, all offered in a unique and distinctive style.

As an artist, Renoir Adder straddles genres. Within his pieces can be found elements of post-impressionism, potentially influenced by the like of Van Gogh; suggestions of Picasso; and impressionist leanings.

Much of this is in evidence in the 15 pieces displayed at La Maison d’Aneli, in the midst of which are, to my eyes, three absorbing painting of Geishas which exhibit a unique and eye-catching style that focuses the attention marvellously, encouraging the observer to work outwards from them and take in the rest of the paintings in turn.

Bump Squeegee’s collage art is, for those familiar with it, instantly recognisable. Rich in colour and style, the dozen pieces here are a marvellous selection of Bump’s work. By their very nature, these are pieces for which description is meaningless; they deserve to be seen first-hand in order to appreciate them fully.

Back on the upper level of the gallery is a selection of physical world photography by Chapichapo Delvalle. Another artists with whom I was unfamiliar, Chapichao’s work focuses on nature and natural settings, varying from full landscape pieces to focusing down to things like a small branch of pine cones set on the stonework of a footpath, offered as a series of studies in colour and style.

Colour is a major element in these images, and might be said to be a physical reflection of Chapichao’s vibrant view of Second Life.

Lam Erin, in providing full disclosure, is one of my favourite Second Life landscape artists, although I only discovered his work less than two years ago. As a virtual artist, Lam takes images captured within Second Life and transforms them into the most fantastic digital works of art, so rich in detail, you feel as if you can see the individual brush strokes in an original piece of art.

One of the hallmarks of Lam’s work is his presentation of cloudscapes. These cast a dramatic, even foreboding, look to the skies of his art that brings an added depth of realism and narrative to his paintings that is utterly remarkable. It is this attention to his clouds and skies that also makes his art redolent of some of the great masters of landscape painting.

As always from Aneli  and La Maison d’Aneli, an engaging exhibition of works by talented artists, and not one to be missed.

SLurl Details

• La Maison d’Aneli (Virtual Holland, rated: Moderate)