Tag: Art 2017

Opening on Sunday, August 27th and running through until Sunday, September 3rd is the last of the Kultivate event exhibitions for 2017.

The Black and White Exhibition features over 40 artists are showcasing some of their best black and white imagery! The event will also feature live performers and a special hunt, plus a Black and White masquerade event.

The artists participating in the exhibition are: Anouk Lefavre, bluesrocker, Booyakashaka Resident, ByrneDarkly Cazalet, Caingrovesnore751, demonista, Callipygian Christensen, Catalina Staheli, Char6666, Christian Ayden, Coltonvond Resident, Daruma Boa, DrusillaGwind Resident, Eleseren Brianna, Elle Thorkveld, emberdearheart, Eucalyptus Carroll, FreeDom Voix, GlitterPrincess Destiny, Grazietta Cazenove, Hana Hoobinoo, Hikaru Enimo and Marcusgay Lefevre, Karma Daxeline, John Brianna, ilyra chardin, Inara Pey, iSkye Silverweb, IthilwenRose Resident, jaime poutine, Kaijah Chrome, KodyMeyers Resident, Kylie Sabra, Lanne Wise, Lusus Saule, Myra Wildmist, Paradox Messmer, retroye resident, roxaane Fyanucci, Sheba Blitz, Slatan Dryke, Storm Blauvelt, Tayren Theas, Tiszo cioc, Veruca Tammas, and Vivienne Darcy.

Event Schedule

All times SLT.

• Sunday, August 27th, 2017, 04:00:
  • Exhibition Area Opens to the Public.
  • Yīnyáng Hunt Begins – scattered throughout the grounds are 20 yīnyáng symbols. Touch them all and win a free prize-if you can find them all.
• Sunday, August 27th, 16:00: Live Performer Parker Static.
• Tuesday, August 29th, 2017, 16:00: Live Performer Lark Bowen.
• Wednesday, August 30th, 2017, 16:00: Live Performer Dimi Van Ludwig.
• Thursday, August 31st, 2017, 16:00: Live Performer AM Forte.
• Friday, September 1st, 2017, 16:00 Live Performer J Lively.
• Saturday, September 2, 2017, time TBC: Live Performer Loreen Legeion
• Sunday, September 3rd, 2017:
• 13:00: Live Performer Melenda Mikael
• 23:59: Exhibition Area Closes to the Public and Yīnyáng Hunt Ends.

Note that the SLurl to the event will only be available when the exhibition opens at 04:00 SLT on Sunday, August 27th, 2017.

SLurl Details

• Black and White exhibition (Water Haven, rated: Moderate)

Ani (Anibrm Jung), who is an award-winning photographer in the physical world and who has been active in Second Life since 2006, recently opened a new gallery space at Gallery Graine and the Riverside Café.

Based in the Netherlands, Ani specialises in photographing nature. She captures many of her images in her own garden using only her 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.

Art by Nature, the name of her gallery space, demonstrates this in a powerful tour-de-force  of her work, spread across two floors of the gallery space. Offering a combination of macro images, wildlife studies and landscape and coastal studies, the gallery makes for an engaging visit.

I’ve long been fascinated by Ani’s work – there are times when art and photography from the physical world perhaps doesn’t gain the recognition it deserves in Second Life. Ani’s photography should persuade those who feel physical world art doesn’t work in-world otherwise. Superlatives such as “magnificent”, “beautiful” and more really don’t measure up to the images Ani has brought in-world. Her composition is – to use another superlative – exquisite; these are pictures that would grace any home – digital of physical.

Were I asked to pick any particular pieces of Ani’s work, I’d honestly be hard put. However, her pictures of cats and ducks (seen in the middle image of this article),  are especially endearing and – having cats of my own – I repeatedly found myself drawn back to them in particular. But that said, all of the pieces on display are fully deserving appreciation – and purchase for those so minded.

SLurl Details

• Art by Nature, Gallery Graine and the Riverside Cafe (Blue Curacao, rated: Moderate)

Club LA and Gallery, curated by Fuyuko ‘冬子’ Amano (Wintergeist) has a new ground-level location, which is still partially under construction. To celebrate the move, the gallery is hosting two exhibitions; the first, Selfies: Some of My Faces, by Burke Bode, has been open since July; the second, An Exhibition by Twain Orfan, opens on Sunday, August 20th.

“Pablo Picasso said ‘Everything you can imagine is real,'” Burke says of his exhibition. “He is right. Living in a world that is completely created from scratch just by the imagination of its residents you experience this. A place where you can invent yourself new every day and for a creative person a place where you MUST create yourself new every single day. [I’m] changing my look constantly as shape shifter. Some of my shapes last for a day, for one picture; and some stay.”

He reflects this beautifully with an exhibition of images illustrating many of his various looks. These are presented in an enclosed space within the gallery, the images laid out to present something of a maze visitors walk through. Semi-translucent, the images resemble layers visible one through another so that as you walk through them, each appears to be peeled away, revealing the next, which is in turn peeled back at the next turn, and so on.

It’s both an artistic approach to presenting change and the possibilities to reinvent within the digital medium, and an intriguing means of commenting on the nature of identity and how we present ourselves in the physical world. While we may not be able to change our looks here, we do “change” according to circumstance, situation and those around us: the person we are with a lover is not the same as the person we are with a child; the person we present to colleagues at work is not the same as the one we share with our closest friends, and so on. Thus, Selfies might be seen as a reflection of this.

Twain Orfan his been active in Second Life for over eight years, but only immersed himself in the world of SL photography in 2016. “I enjoy taking photo [the] art of items that are often overlooked when photographers visit various sims,” he says of his work. “Finding pure art in objects such as a chair, a table, a flower-pot, or, perhaps a bicycle. From time to time I also try my hand at Landscapes, or an occasional shot involving my own avatar.”

An Exhibition reflects all of this with a collection of 18 images taken from around second life, all of which also demonstrate Twain’s interest in, and experiment with, angle, light and shadow. What is particularly fascinating with the images is the fact they are all raw: Twain resists the use of GIMP or Photoshop for post-processing, relying instead purely on the viewer and Windlight for his pictures. The result is a fascinating collection of pieces which are individual and collectively eye-catching, offering unique windows into our virtual lives.

Both Selfies: Some of My Faces and An Exhibition make for an engaging visit, with the latter officially opening at 12:00 noon on Sunday, August 20th, with music by Marain Dufaux.

The new gallery space itself offers more room for exhibitions, and includes a landscaped garden visitors can enjoy and an information centre / studio space. Teleport disks are provided to assist visitors in getting around – although in truth, everything at ground level is within easy walking distance of the landing point.

SL Details

• Club LA and Gallery (Amano rated: Moderate)

Now open for viewing at the new temporary home for Dividni Shostakovich’s Split Screen, is a pair if installations by JadeYu Fhang and Krystali Rabeni, which can each be reached from the main landing point, or via one another from their respective landing points.

EveryWhere and NoWhere, by JadeYu, forms a ground level installation, and is the more extensive of the two. It offers a complex environment of scenes and platforms, forming a unique world of geometric shapes and inhabited by strange, female forms.

In the first – which acts as the landing point – the figures are enmeshed in a delicate framework somewhat resembling a bird’s nest. Ladders rise from the platform at various angles, each offering a number of poses for visitors. Beyond this lie processions of doorway-like boxes march and undulate through the sky, or rise vertically upwards, apparently tended by beings with dragonfly like wings as streams of light pulse and roll around them. Two structures sit within the rising tower of squares, each a miniature tableau in its own right.

Other platforms float close by, occupied by more beings, while the ground below flows in curlicues, some of which rise to surround two central figures. Further away, on two sides of the region, the land rises, patterned geometry tattooing its surface. More shapes, almost origami-like in form, hover delicate in the sky over the slopes of the landscape.

An intricate landscape, the setting is a reflection of its title. Fascinating, complex, with a range of facets and potential interpretations,  EveryWhere and NoWhere should be visited with local sounds enabled in order to hear the accompanying sound scape. This, with its metronomic chimes and plaintive voice, gives the entire space added depth.

The Games We Play offers visitors a games of chess of a most unusual kind. Far from being the traditional chequered board, this playing surface is uneven, individual squares set at different levels relative to their neighbours – and then extend up the walls surround the space before closing overhead. Pieces in gold and silver are ranged across the horizontal area of play, and occupy the some of the wall spaces as well.

The pieces themselves further reveal the unusual nature of this game – or games: the gold pieces comprise more than the normal single queen or pair of knights, for example. Meanwhile, winged pawns fly overhead, imbued with a power not to be found in a normal game of chess. It’s a complex setting the nature of the game suggesting that – like life – there is more to this game than meets the eye.

Neither artist offers an explanation for their respective works, preferring to leave interpretations to visitors. However, each piece offers enough clues – including their titles, for opinions, ideas and narratives to be formed. As such, both offer an intriguing and interesting visit, and will remain in place until the end of September 2017.

SLurl Details

• Split Screen (LEA 15, rated: Moderate)