Tag: Art 2017

One of the reasons I like the small, more boutique-style galleries scattered across Second Life is that they are most often the places I encounter artists and photographer with whom I’m less than familiar in terms of their work. While larger galleries are oft tempts to stick with “established” names, these smaller venues tend to cast their nets much wiser.

Such gallery is Club LA and Gallery, curated by Fuyuko ‘冬子’ Amano (Wintergeist), which for June presents a selection of images from the portfolio of Peeter Tamerlane. A photographer / artist whose work encompasses both avatar studies and landscape images, Peeter’s art is new to me, and I’m delighted to have come across it.

Twenty pieces are offered in the exhibition, and they clearly demonstrate his passion for photography and art, offering evocative, eye-catching and – in places – sensual images which all have a story to tell in one way or another. They are presented in a range of formats, large and small, and set out in such a way as to suggest a working studio as much as a galleried exhibition, with pictures both on the walls and leaning against them, sometimes overlapping slightly, all of which adds to the cosiness of the display.

In terms of the larger format pictures, these are dominated by landscapes which instantly attract the eye – not just because of their panoramic format, but because of their overall composition. Gulls, facing the gallery entrance, for example, is quite magnificent for its framing of a coastal scene; the lighting is exquisite, the camera position beautifully suggestive of the picture having been taken by someone wading through the ebb and flow of waves along the sand. Equally, on the other side of the wall on which Gulls is mounted sits Cold, a piece more evocative of a painting than a photo, in which the title is beautifully brought forth through the use of colour.

Among the smaller pieces are studies of sensuality (Last Kiss To…)  and sexuality (the Vea series), which again show a skilled artist’s eye in bringing forth the emotional content of the pictures. Last Kiss To… is rich in soft colours, perfectly reflecting the love between the couple. The Vea series, meanwhile, are presented in monochrome, which brings to the fore their naked sexuality. Then there are the more introspective pieces – Horizons, The Love Is…, Is Missing, Whenever, etc.,  each of which captures us within the spell of a story fragment caught in time, drawing us into them.

This is another delightful exhibition of an artist’s craft, and one well worth visiting throughout June.

SLurl Details

•   Club LA and Gallery (Amaro, rated: Moderate)

Open from Monday, May 29th through until Monday, July 31st, 2017 at Split Screen’s temporary home*, is Giovanna Cerise’s newest installation, Flash Back / Flash Forward. This is a complex piece, rooted in both the artist’s own perceptions of creativity and in the notion  – or perhaps that should be the temporal nature – of time as we generally tend to perceive it.

The core of the installation is a large, fractured structure. This seems to rise in multi-faceted tiers into the sky, but contains only a single level, reached via teleport – the large daisy at the base of the structure and a short walk from the landing point.  This level is divided into disparate rooms and corridors to present something of a maze in which none of the spaces are connected to its neighbours but must be reached by passing through the walls themselves. within some of the spaces can be found certain artefacts  –   a suitcase and oversized key, an easel, a hat and rose, images –  which we are left to interpret for ourselves.

There is no set root through these spaces, although a list of SLurls those containing objects is supplied in the descriptive note card. Instead, visitors are encouraged to wander. In doing so, moving through the room and along the corridors becomes something of an optical experience. Scenes flicker in and out of our perception, colours flick and change – white, red, white – perspectives shift; self-awareness fluctuates as our avatars flips through different states. sometimes solid, other times an outline reflecting the shapes and images contained within walls, sometimes a shadow.

It’s a slightly confusing, perhaps disconcerting effect, heightened by the longer one walks through the installation, as images and colours and outlines flicker in and out of existence or flip from one to another before our eyes, become discrete moments in time revealed only to us in our passing. And time – as noted, is the core of things here.

Flash Back / Flash Forward is an examination of time at both the micro and the macro levels. On the micro, is an attempt to encapsulate the artist’s relationship with her work, from initial concept through development, to its completion, as seen trough the lens of time. The artist can only exist in the present, thus the development of a piece of art becomes an exercise in reflection and projection: the initial idea is reflected in the mirror of construction, which serves to project the work into the future, to its final state. There can be no viewpoint from outside the linear nature of time; no real ability of see the work as a fluid whole, from start to finish.

At the macro level, Flash Back / Flash Forward reminds us that our entire life is spent in “the present” – but “the present” is personal to each of us, an elusive, undefined space through which we each travel, sometimes overlapping with the space occupied by others. It is a space into which the past can intrude via memories which flicker, appear, vanish or even morph from point to point as our present is influenced by mood, desire, understanding, and so on. And always, the shifting nature of our present foreshadows what is yet to be, but never allows us to experience it until “the future” is our “present”.

And so everything might be said to be chaotic, hence the form of the build and the random tumble of sights as we move through it. But within the chaos of the present are oases of calm; moments forever caught in time – and thus, the rooms Giovanna presents for us to find: The Dream; The Point of View; The Desire; The Lighteness; The Bird; The Impossible Choice.

This is a fascinating, intriguing installation, one which may require a careful reading of the supplied nots to fully grasp, but which is nevertheless beautifully executed.

SLurl Details

• Flash Back / Flash Forward (Coppelia, rated: Moderate)

*For more on Split Screen’s situation, please read Split Screen Loses Its Home.

Now on display through to the end of the month at the Serena Imagine Arts Centre are exhibitions by Anibrm Jung and Hayael Bracula, two artists I’ve previously featured in these pages, and who between them have two unique perspectives on the worlds around us.

Anibrm Jung specialises in physical world photography, focusing on nature. Many of her images captured from her own garden, and all of them recorded using only her Nikon D60 camera and natural light. Everything is framed directly through the viewfinder, and no cropping nor image manipulation is used after the fact. In this way, we are able to see each picture exactly as she did when taking it, allowing us to share her own sense of closeness with her subjects.

The result is stunning images, rich is substance and detail; vibrant demonstrations of the art of working with nature, often at the macro level, skilfully utilising depth of field or soft focus to marvellous effect to produce truly stunning images.

In the north-west corner of Serena Arts, Ani is exhibiting over 20 of her images ranging from fabulous shots of the coast, through beautiful captures of nature, to the aforementioned pictures from her garden, many of which feature studies of cats and her macro lens work – which really is extraordinary. These are images which would grace any home, either in Second Life or the physical world, and all are available to buy. I challenge anyone not to be captivated by her work, particularly when it comes to the likes of aKELEI or Over the Moon! – the latter of which beautifully captures a Blood Moon.

Sitting between Ani’s exhibition and the region’s landing point is Heaven, a substantial exhibition of work by Hayael Bracula, which feature more than 40 pieces of work.

Haya focuses on images captured within Second Life, with a particular  – but by no means exclusive – slant towards avatar studies. Using a range of approaches to her work, coupled with a skilled application of post-processing, Haya’s work always draws the eye into it. There is a deep well of detail to be found in her studies, revealing much about mood, thoughts and emotions, both with her subjects and ourselves. These are, in many cases, pieces which are more about encompassing a statement than offering a narrative, and they do so extremely powerfully.

Scattered among the avatar studies is the occasional landscape or scene (one of which is actually repeated in the exhibition). These again reflect Haya’s approach to her work, setting a tone and style that is unique to each so that – in contrast to the more numerous avatar studies – do perhaps suggest a narrative to us.

Both Ani and Haya will be on display at Serena Imagine Arts Centre through until the end of May, 2017, and if you haven’t already done so, a visit is recommended.

SLurl Details

• Serena Imagine Arts Centre (Serena Imagine, rated: Moderate)