Tag: Art 2019

Currently open at the Itakos Project, curated by Akim Alonzo, is an exhibition entitled Soul Portraits. Featuring the work of ten individual photographers and one couple, it’s an exhibition that evokes – for me at least – mixed feelings.

To frame the exhibition, it is easiest to quote the introductory note card:

With this exhibition we celebrate 4 years of life of the Soul Portraits-Itakos Art Gallery group on the Flickr platform, with more than 5700 photos published by about 250 photographers registered in the group. A collective exposition that focuses on female portraits, and the selected artists all have a particular and personal eye on the emotions that a second life avatar can express. Feminine looks that touch, sometimes deep and inextricable, or tender, half-closed or hidden eyes, looks that wander beyond or that stare at you, questioning your soul.

The selected participating artists for the exhibition are: Mr. S, Sonic, Roberta Barineaux, Miuccia Klaar, Katia Lavecchia, Charlie Namiboo, Izabela Navarathna, Maloe Vansant, Lula Yue, and the pairing of CFaleny and Moki Yuitza, who between them have a total of 30 images on display, with the majority having three images apiece within the exhibition.

I will admit that in viewing the works, I tended to have something of a personal bias; three of the artists participating in Soul Portraits – Mr. S, Charlie Namiboo and Moloe Vansant – never cease to fascinate me with their work; they have the ability to frame entire stories within their photographs I find incredibly alluring. As so it is the case here, where I immediately gravitated towards Maloe’s four pieces as they formed pair bracketing the three from Mr. S at one end of the gallery’s  Grey Pavilion.

Which is not to say narrative isn’t present in any of the other pieces on offer; far from it; there are stories or threads of stories to be found within many of the pieces in the exhibit; and those that don’t perhaps carry a full narrative do convey emotions and provoke a subjective response – which as the liner notes indicate, is the goal of the exhibition.

However, I do confess to finding the similarity in approach to many of the images – a close focus on head shots sans broader background – coupled with their close proximity to one another, for me tended to lessen the overall impact of individual pieces.

But this aside, Soul Portraits is a further engaging exhibition at Itakos Project.

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• Itakos Project (ATL, rated: Moderate)

Currently open at The Edge gallery curated by Ladmilla, is an ensemble exhibition entitled Visual Poems. It features pairings of art and poetry, with some of the artists providing both the words and images, others working in pairs: one producing the images and the other the words.

Pieces are spread between two of the gallery’s exhibition spaces: the castle – notably the upper rooms and the parapet walks around the curtain walls – and in and alongside the cathedral. Those participating in the exhibition are: Mirabelle Sweetwater (images and words); Kapaan (images and words); PatrickofIreland (images and words); Thomascrown11 (images and words) VenicioArmin (images and words) Pearl Grey (images) and Klaus Bereznyak (words); TaraAers (images) and Oleanhorok (words); ViktorSavior (images) and AlenaPit (words); and Ladmilla (images) and Eli Medier (words).

This is a fascinating exhibition  – and one that, by virtue of the its scale, may require more than one visit to fully appreciate. The combining of words and images is always an interesting concept (something we have often explored with Seanchai Library with exhibitions at Holly Kai Park), perhaps doubly so when the creator of an image is entrusting their work to the imagination of another to produces the words around it.

Hence, within this exhibition there is an attractiveness to the pairing of artist and poet that can captivate, and without wishing to appear to select favourites, I admit to being particularly drawn to the pieces by Viktor and Alena (two of which form the banner image for this article). There is a minimalist beauty to Viktor’s images that is perfectly balanced by Alena’s 4-line verses. Together they paint a complete story that is deeply evocative.

Alena is a prolific writer, having produced more than 200 poems, and what fascinates me with this particular pairing is the question of which came first: the image or the poem? Or perhaps they have independent origins, with the artists matching words and pictures after the fact.

All my feelings from the heart and soul are reflected in poetry, which makes up most of my life in SL and RL. I write about different things: about romantic relationships, about feelings, about family, about nature, about hope and love. Many people say that my poems are positive and easy. I hope you leave me your opinion about them too. I write poems in Russian, but now I begin to prepare translations into English and arrange visual exhibitions in SL art galleries.

– AlenaPit on her writing

Alongside the gallery’s cathedral is Venicio Armin’s selection of images for the exhibition, and I must again confess I found these to be completely engrossing. Presented in monochrome the images and words, provide a story of two relationships: the relationship between a man and a woman and the love Argentines have for the Tango. Through six images and short poems bother are beautifully framed and presented in magnificent depth, with Venicio also offering the opportunity to hear the music of the Argentine Tango.

Also on offer at the gallery is an exhibition of art by  anibrm Jung and 3D art by Sempiternel and Mariemadeleine38. These add further depth to an engaging visit – but again, you should allow time to give the exhibitions the attention the deserve.

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• THE EDGE Art Gallery (Totuga Island, rated: Moderate)

Currently open at IMAGO Art Gallery, curated by Mareea Farrasco, is an ensemble exhibition celebrating NorderNey (closed to public access at the time of writing), one of Second Life’s more popular photogenic regions (and which I confess to having covered in these pages in 2014, and 2017, although I really should have taken the time to visit it more recently).

Happy Days at NorderNey is a small but enticing exhibition, featuring images by Maxie Daviau, Ninny Dazy, Sorcha Tyles and Mareea herself in a space specially prepared to resemble a part of the region with a sandy beach, the foaming wash of a tide, under an overcast sky.

Each of the artists presents four pieces of art, somewhat split between landscapes of the region and avatar studies that using the region as a backdrop. Together they form – as the title of the exhibition suggests – memories of happy times spent within NorderNey in one of its more recent iterations.

What is particularly interesting in the sixteen images presented is the way that all of the artists have selected more-or-less the same aspects of the region to include in their images: the path to the beach with bicycles leaning on the fence, the sailing boats moored off-shore the scooter sitting at the boundary between tall grass and warm sand for example.

In doing so, each presents unique perspectives on the setting through the use of colour, tone, and post-processing to bring out the clouds, or to offer a feeling of summer warmth or the overcast of an autumn’s day, and so on. Thus, each group of four images may feature some of the same elements as the others, but overall they present different moods and stir different emotional responses.

A small, easy-to view exhibition featuring a group of richly talented Second Life photographers.

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• IMAGO Art Gallery (Broken Mountain, rated: Moderate)

I received an invitation from CybeleMoon (Hana Hoobinoo) to drop in to a boutique exhibition of her work at the Lalalala Gallery complex owned and curated by Lala Lightfoot. An invitation that allowed me to both visit CybeleMoon’s work – which is something I’m always only too happy to do, being a confirmed fan of her work – and pop in to see Lala’s current exhibition and see preparations in hand for a new exhibition.

Waifs, located in the North Gallery provides a gathering of Cybele’s art focusing on children, and carries with it a definite Parisian theme. It mixes physical world and virtual world images in another captivating display of art with a story, helped among by Edit Piaf via the easel-mounted media board.

Those familiar with Cybele’s work will likely recognise a fair few of the images on offer. However, this doesn’t lessen the impact on seeing them here, particularly when framed by their groupings: Place de la Sorbonne, Boulevard Montmartre, Rue Poissonnière. These provide a uniquely Parisian feel to the set of images on each of the walls, and are centred on at least one of Cybele’s pieces in-world art, which perhaps binds images and place names together.

Take Rue Poissonnière (“Fishmonger’s Road”), for example, or Boulevard Montmartre. Both offer images of young children – the waifs of the exhibition’s title. The former brings to mind the route fish would take to the market of Les Halles from Boulogne and other ports, with Cybele painting The Siren’s Call offers and image of a little girl dreaming, perhaps of taking flight like the gulls overhead, or of diving into the waters and becoming a mermaid, free to escape the troubles of land life. With Gigi sitting among the images of Boulevard Montmartre, there is an echo of the Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur (admittedly, there are no domes on the house to assist in the suggestion – but the echo is there). This, together with the image of the Eiffel Tower roots the surrounding images in thoughts of the artists who once painted the street life of the district, and he views it offers across Paris, maintaining the Parisian thread through the exhibition.

The rest of the gallery complex comprises two exhibition spaces, one of which was being prepared for a further exhibition by Lala, and other of which features a collection of her paintings, and Lala’s studio space, a cosy social space.

A physical world artist, Lala offers a number of her painting through the exhibition space, all of which  – again at the time of my visit – were on a floral theme. Most (all?) appear to be pastel images, rich in colour and presented in an uncluttered style. The new exhibition appears to be focused on digital art, and I look forward to returning to Thistle in the future to visit it.

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• Lalalala Gallery (Thistle, rated: Moderate)