Tag: Art 2019

Currently open at the Rainbow Painters Art Gallery, curated by Timo Dumpling and Patience Roxley is an ensemble exhibition entitled Artists Choice, which once again offers a rich mix of art from both Second Life and the physical world and a broad cross-section of Second Life artists.

To be honest, I’m unsure as to the origins of the exhibition title and whether it is a reference to the fact each artist selected their own pieces for it rather than it being set to a theme, or whether the pieces on offer were selected by those within the Rainbow Arts group on seeing the various artists’ work, or some other mechanism. Not that it really matters (although I suspect the first of these options) – what matters is the art on display.

For those who enjoy SL centric art, the exhibition offers pieces by the likes of (but not limited to) Alena Pit and Arin Bellios (avatar-centric studies), and Doc Romano, Fabio and Bella Firefly (landscapes); while artists such as CheekyJane Sahara, Eta Goldsmith, Callum Writer and Pure Love offer pieces of their physical world art.

Also to be found within the gallery is some admirable wildlife art by Nina Camplin and Janelle (who is also the gallery’s “New Artist of the Month”), displayed with a 3D elephant by Claude Belgar. Meanwhile, on the upper wing of the gallery, one can find Milly Sharple’s always impressive art leading the way to a exhibition of art featuring the Boston role-play region, as entered in a competition to depict Boston at the time f the famous Tea Party.

With 40 artists exhibiting, the above is barely scratching the surface for this exhibition. There really is a richness of art that is engrossing. Given this, Artists Choice offers more than enough to sate the thirst of any art lover, and I admit to being particularly drawn to certain pieces – notably Callum Writer’s fabulous abstractions, Nina Camplin’s tiger and lion studies and Doc Romano’s two SL landscapes.

These six pieces proved to be personal eye magnets during my exploration of the exhibition even though I found all of the art engaging (and wanted to both fuss Milly Sharple’s Blue Cat and step into either tempestad de fuego or En el corazon de las tinieblas by Javier, simply because the manner in which they present the same scene so independently of one another.

All told, Artists Choice is engaging, and well worth taking the time too jump over to Rainbow Painters Art Gallery to see. And if you like images suitable for Halloween, do check out Haunted Picture by Edwige Monroe – just give it a minute when viewing.

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• Rainbow Painters Art Gallery (Chadara, rated; Moderate)

Kerry Harbour Pop Up Gallery is currently hosting an exhibition of art arranged by Michel Bechir of the Lyric Gallery. It features art by ViktorSavior, Xia Firethorn and Carey Chenault, and forms a small, cosy exhibition, with Xia and Carey noted as winners of the Lyric Gallery’s Visual Feast Music Competition.

Located in a small town house, the exhibition sits on two floors. On the ground floor and occupying the front room is a selection of ViktorSavior’s paints of cloud formations. Half a dozen of these charming and rich cloudscapes, and the opportunity to take your own picture against a backdrop of clouds over a coastal sea-scape by Viktor.

In the back room of the house is a set of four images by Xia Firethorn and focused of Second Life landscapes that are captivating in scope and presentation, and one avatar study, The Kimono, which is quite bewitching in its form and narrative.

The single upper floor of the gallery is devoted to Carey Chenault’s art. Again focusing on Second Life landscapes, Carey’s work is smaller in scale than Xia’s and Viktor’s allowing for a larger display of pieces  – 11 in total – featuring some of SL’s popular destinations.

Cosy, easy-on-the-eye and with some captivating images, this is a charming exhibition worth taking the time to visit.

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• Kerry Harbour Pop Up Gallery (Kerry Harbour, rated Moderate)

In September 2019, I toured the Museum of Fine Arts with curator Tonem (see: The Museum of Fine Arts in Second Life), and was impressed with the care and attention that has been put into the gallery’s operation in making it as much akin to the experience of visiting a physical world art museum / gallery as possible.

Since that original article was posted, the team behind the Museum of Fine Arts have been continuing to develop the museum’s grounds, and also recently opened the second part of their exhibition of art by les trois grandes dames of French Impressionism, so this gave me a reason to pop back and spend time once more at the museum.

Having featured the art of Marie Bracquemond in the first part of the grades dames exhibit, this second part features the work of Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (1841- 1895), and it can be found in the Lindal Kidd terrace gallery space, which had now been increased to two side-by-side pavilions behind the main museum building (just enter the main building and past through the ground-floor exhibition spaces and exit through the rear doors to find the terrace).

Morisot was born into a family enmeshed in the arts: her father, while local administrator, was trained in architecture, while her mother was the great-niece of Jean-Honoré Fragonard, one of the most prolific Rococo painters of the ancien régime. So, even allowing for art being a natural part of her education, she and her sisters perhaps received additional encouragement in pursuing it. This encouragement continued through her early career, which brought her into contact with artists such as Édouard Manet and Oscar-Claude Monet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.

Her own work was not publicly exhibited for the first time until 1864 – largely because she was a hard self-critic, destroying a lot of her early pieces because she regarded them as not being good enough – particularly her early work in oil paints, a medium she particularly struggled with initially. However, from the early 1870s Morisot began to be exhibited more regularly, gained a patron – private art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. By the late 1870s, she was regarded as the “one real Impressionist in this group”, and judged Morisot among the best of the impressionists by many art critics.

What is particularly engaging about the exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts is that it amounts to perhaps the large single gathering of Morisot’s work to be seen in the world today outside of the Louvre in Paris. As such, it is a must-see for anyone with a love of classical art, whilst again demonstrating the uniqueness of SL itself as a means to present such a collection to what amounts to a global audience.

In keeping with the Museum’s approach, individual pieces are offered to scale to one another and of a size equating to how they would appear in the physical world when standing before them. This can make individual paintings a little small when viewing them and call into use some steady Alt-camming, but the effort is worth it. In addition, each is displayed with an information card giving the title, date, medium and provenance of the piece – all of which can be viewed in local chat by clicking on a painting.

This is another engaging, engrossing exhibition of physical world art, offering a unique opportunity to appreciate the work of one of the great names of the French Impressionist movement.

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• Museum of Fine Arts (Jieut, rated Moderate)

Now open within the Artspace 2535 area of Ribong Gallery, curated by Santoshima, is a collection of images by Harbor Galaxy. entitled Alter Ego, it features some of the artist’s favourite avatar characters, and it offers an intriguing walk through her imagination.

And I do mean “walk” in a literal sense: the arts is set out in s series of rooms the visitor is encouraged to walk through it turn from the landing point. Each offers at least one piece of art and these are – to borrow a phrase from the introduction to the exhibition – monumental in size. They tower over visitors, drawing us into each them, allowing, perhaps for a greater appreciation of the narrative each holds within it.

This walk through the rooms also symbolises a part of Harbor’s philosophy on art and creativity, that “the path of creation travels in one direction, then back again.”, although in this case, the walk takes us through the exhibition and then onward to an opportunity to visit the rest of the Ribong gallery spaces.

The art itself is visually striking – not just because of its physical size, but also in framing, content and presentation – so much so that individual descriptions of pieces are perhaps wasted, and viewing first-hand is required, particularly as the setting with its use of light and colour is very much a part of the overall exhibition. That said, I will admit to being particularly drawn to the two Mage images and Toxic Dreams a couple of rooms beyond them. Precisely why these images in particular caught and held my eye isn’t entirely clear to me, although I suspect with the Mage images, a degree of mythology played a part; looking at them, I found myself caught with thoughts of the shaman-like version of Herne the Hunter once popularised in a UK TV series.

With a “formal” launch at 14:00 SLT on Saturday, October 19th (having has a “soft” opening on Friday, October 18th), Alter Ego is an engaging, somewhat immersive exhibition.

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• Artspace 2535 Ribong Gallery (Mieum, rated: General)
• Ribong Gallery lobby