Tag: Art 2018

Currently open to visitors at the University of Texas, San Antonio ArtSpace gallery in Second Life is Behind the Avatar, an exhibition of the photography of Paola Mills. To be honest, it’s an exhibition I almost completely missed, the notification having escaped my attention back in September – so my apologies to Paola.

This is a small, but emotive display of work, focused on avatar studies, and which – as the title of the exhibition suggests – offers a glimpse of the person behind the camera and the avatar.

Hello I’m Angela Paola and in pixel version I’m Paola Mills. 

I signed up to Second life in 2007, after hearing a lot of Linden Lab in the media, I did not like the name Second Life, but its potential as a platform to use, because I am passionate about video games since I was a girl. Reading an article in the American Journal, I realised that Second Life was something else, it is a place used to pleasure doing business, others see it as financial speculation, for other people it’s just a 3D chat. But soon it became a niche for lovers of creativity.

– Paola Mills, introducing Behind the Avatar

Paola notes that while she isn’t a professional photographer, she always carries a small camera with her when out and about in the physical world, taking pictures of the people and things that capture her attention. In entering Second Life, she found a way to expand her photographic creativity, using the viewer’s snapshot capability to capture moods, as well as moments, and give lasting expression to the emotions she might feel at any given time.

It is precisely this emotional amplification of mood and emotion that is represented in the 12 images offered at the ArtSpace Gallery. All 12 are deeply expressive and / or representative of a mood – contemplation, reflection, hurt, fascination, and more, with the nature of the form used – human or robotic – used to present the mood and, with at least some of the images, offer up an additional narrative.

Paola notes that unlike many SL photographers, she makes minimal use of post-process editing. while she states this is more down to an inability to use such applications (when it comes to PhotoShop, I know exactly how she feels!), rather than a conscious decision. However, rather than detracting from her work, I would actually say this adds to it, drawing the audience into each of the images as they are: moments (and emotions) caught in that instant of time, without later embellishment or alteration.

I’m not sure when this exhibition ends, so I would recommend seeing it sooner rather than later, just in case.

SLurl Details

• UTSA ArtSpace (Tejano Tech, rated: Moderate)

Currently open at the Lyric Art Gallery is an exhibition featuring some 40+ artists, entitled Visual Feast – Vintage. Participating artists were asked to submit an image representing a period between 1920 and 1959, and which could be said to be a vintage representation of the specific period the artists selected to reflect.

Ruby Lane notes that “an item described as ‘vintage’ should speak of the era in which it was produced. Vintage can mean an item is of a certain period of time, as in “vintage 1950’s” but it can also mean (and probably always should) that the item exhibits the best of a certain quality, or qualities, associated with or belonging to that specific era. In other words, for the term vintage to accurately apply to it, an item should be somewhat representational and recognizable as belonging to the era in which it was made.”

– From the exhibition liner notes.

The result is an interesting – and somewhat curious selection of images captured from within Second Life and offered as both paintings and photographs. Some opt for what might be called a traditional look at the period they’ve opted to represent: a flapper arriving outside of a club in the 1920’s, fashionable (for the time) cigarette holder in hand, hair cut short; or another young woman in a 50s dress celebrating ownership of a new Fiat Nuova 500; or a girl on the beach in a typical 40s/50s beach costume.

Others have gone for a quirkier approach to their selected  period – such as a pop band standing on another world, in space suits, their classic rocket ship standing as part of the backdrop, all recalling the 1950s heyday of pulp science-fiction. Some are more esoteric, in places suggesting periods somewhat older than the preferred decades through the style of clothing being worn; or which offer a modern take on vintage elements from the intended decades, such as a young woman in what might be taken as contemporary clothing watching a classic steam train speeding by.

Such is the volume of art in the exhibition, naming all of the artists isn’t practical without a post like this reading like a shopping list; nor is it particularly easy to single pieces out. However, in the latter regard, Natalie Montagne’s Music And Lights is for me a stand-out piece, and possibly the jewel in the exhibition. It is a quite sublime piece: a fabulous portrait of Ol’ Blue Eyes Himself, Frank Sinatra, perhaps the embodiment of America and American music in the 1950s.

Details on individual pieces and the artists responsible for them can be obtained by clicking on each piece and accepting the offered note card.

A broad exhibition with an interesting theme, Visual Feast – Vintage opened on November 3rd. Those visiting the exhibition are also invited to tour the wider Sea Island Modern Fantasy Roleplay region, if they so wish.

SLurl Details

• Lyric Art Gallery (Sea, rated: Moderate)

Currently open at La Maison d’Aneli Gallery, curated by Aneli Abeyante, is a new ensemble art exhibition featuring 2D artists Cybele Moon (Hana Hoobinoo), Violaine (Anadonne) and Barret Darkfold, together with 3D artists Nevereux and Rikku Yalin. This is an eclectic mix of artists, resulting in a diverse set of exhibitions, reached by taking the teleport from the gallery’s ground level lobby area.

Cybele Moon’s art should need no introduction; she is a doyenne of fantasy art / photography in Second Life, producing marvellous images that are richly ethereal, fabulously produced and each rich in its own story.  Her art within Second Life is very a reflection of her photography in the physical world, where she captures landscapes – sometimes using an infra-red camera – and produces mythical scenes of extraordinary depth and life.

Many of the pieces she displays in-world combine the physical and virtual worlds to create wonderfully layered pictures which offer not so much a windows into narrative, but doorways into entire realms; stories often captured in words and pictures on her website, Cybele Shine. She says of her work, “I’m a time traveller who loves exploring old stones and tomes and forest groves. My dreams are filled with enchanted children and haunted woodlands,” and this is perfectly reflected in the selection of images she is displaying a La Maison d’Aneli.

On the lower floor of the gallery are exhibitions of physical world art by Violaine and Barret, two artists I’ve not encountered before, but each with a distinctive style.

Violaine presents a mix of art and photograph (some of which touches on NSFW) grouped in deliberate sets of four, from abstracts (as with the set entitled Instants), through to deeply intimate moments (as captured within the set entitled Neighbours). Each set has its own unique attraction, be it a recollection of Warhol through Angelina, or an echo of L.S. Lowry seen in Houses.

Barret’s work is wholly abstract, featuring pieces of swirling  motion or carrying hints of linear geometry. The majority are presented a warm colours: yellow and orange with a hint of red in places, or with earthly browns and greens, although some are more earthen in colour, encompassing paler shades and tans. All hold a common bond, one with another, something than gives this exhibition an almost narrative flow as the eye pass from one images to the next and from upper row to lower.

For her 3D installation, Nevereux presents Assembly Line, a piece that places the visitor inside a 3D drawing, asking a series of pointed questions as it does so. These questions, asked within a blank verse statement, encompass the nature of identity and the content of life. The art within the piece serves as an illustration of life: two-dimensional aspects: a house, a street a place of work, a children’s playground, rendered as 3D (our digital life of 0s and 1s referenced in the blank verse) by the movement, of a pencil across white surfaces (“what if we’re analogue?”).

It’s a curious piece, a little difficult to grasp, but also – perhaps – with a touch of self-effacing humour (“You can align yourself to me instructions … or you can use binoculars + an aspirin and go explore”).

Rikku Yalin offers another curio of an installation, largely focused on 3D pieces of a decidedly mechanical bent – including a giant robot, a mechanical cat, smaller robots – all gathered around wooden couple standing as ringmaster and wife. 2D art on the walls in part continue the mechanical theme.

However, for me, the most striking piece, for all the quirkiness of the rest, is a stunning portrait of the late actor Charles Bronson. It’s a stunning piece which, aside from the moustache, could have been painted while he was on the set of Sergio Leone’s celebrated western, Once Upon A Time in the West.

Five very different displays offering five unique perspectives of art and narrative, all of which add up to one intriguing exhibition.

SLurl Details

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