Tag: Art 2020

THE EDGE Art Gallery, operated by Ladmilla and Eli Medier has a new home in Second Life. Now occupying a 2-storey villa-style house, the gallery serves as a centre for the couple to display their own art alongside of a new project they have initiated called Art on the Road.

The large interior walls of the house provide space for Ladmilla’s and Eli’s SL-centric images, with the rooms spacious enough so that the furniture within them doesn’t interfere with views of the art. These offer a mix of unique pieces by Ladmilla and Eli, and a set of joint pieces feature an image by Ladmilla and words by Eli.

This latter style of art by the couple has always had a fascination for me. The melding of Eli’s words with Ladmilla’s art offers a rich combination of imagery and narrative that cannot fail to capture the imagination. Eli also provides his own images and words, while Ladmilla presents a series of her own images taken from her journeys around Second Life, adding to the overall richness of the art on display within the gallery. Outside, the garden fence offers space for art by some of Ladmilla’s and Eli’s favourite artists.

Also to be found in the gallery is information on Lamilla and Eli’s Art on the Road series, mentioned above.

This is a project to bring art to the roads of Mainland, with small gallery spaces, offering people the chance to drop by and appreciate Eli’s and Ladmilla’s art.

We thought it would be nice that instead of calling people to the usual galleries, we’d use some spots like small pubs along the roadsides what may attract people’s attention. We don’t know how well it will work, although we hope to keep the spaces for some time, so we’re just a trying things. Besides, we love mainland!

– Ladmilla

At the time of writing, three such locations have been set up by the couple, landmarks below. As well as offering more opportunities to enjoy Lamilla’s and Eli’s art, each location includes a tandem bicycle rezzer so that visitors can enjoy along the roads of Mainland.

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• THE EDGE Art Gallery (Arcobluster, rated Moderate)
• Art on the Road, Circuit La Corse (Wavepaw, rated Moderate)
• Art on the Road, Linden Highway (Yamato, rated: Moderate)
• Art of the Road (Monti, rated Moderate)

Officially running from Friday May 22nd through Sunday May 24th inclusive (so my apologies to John and the Kultivate team for getting to it so late) is the 2020 Kultivate Sensuality Art Exhibition. As the name suggests, this is very much an exhibition of adult-themed art, so may not be everyone’s cup of tea.

Located on a sky platform, the exhibition presents the artists work in a series of individual gallery spaces offered in as a motel built around set around a central square that offers the main event space.

When last writing about the exhibition – admittedly in 2018 – I noted that the individual exhibitions at that time predominantly focused on the female form, with the male a little lacking, and that themes were perhaps more entrenched in a familiar take on “sensuality”: full frontal nudity, sex, and SM / BDSM, rather than drawing from a broader interpretation of the word, adding:

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with this per se in an adult-themed art exhibition, and I’ve nothing against what is on display within this exhibition. However, sensuality is a broad canvas on which to paint, and opting from full frontal or direct nudity or “simple” themes such as BDSM at times  miss an opportunity to engage imaginations beyond just titillation.

Let’s face it, the most erotic and sensuous organ in the body is the mind: so it would perhaps be nice to see more artists recognise this, and play or toy with our imaginations rather than perhaps opting for the easier boobs’n’bums approach. Which shouldn’t be taken as a complaint against seeing this exhibition. As noted above, it’s a personal – and subjective – point-of-view, although I hope it may challenge some artists to consider the subject more broadly next time around 🙂 .

This blog, May 2018

I doubt those words have any bearing on the selection of art offered for an exhibition two years on, but I’m pleased to say that both the male figure gets more of a look-in with this exhibit, while there is that broader richness of general sensuality offered by a number of artists that clearly works to excite the imagination: views of stocking clad legs, the brush of lipstick coated lips on lipstick coated lips, the use of soft-focus and monochrome to add atmosphere and a subtle touch.

Of course, nudity, sex and BDSM are still to be found, but overall – and allowing for the fact I missed the 2019 event – the 2020 exhibition strikes me as a more rounded affair in terms of the breadth of art on display; and I admit I found a piece by Gina Brucato featuring a champagne bottle a particularly artistically cheeky piece in its message!

Unfortunately, as I missed getting this piece out sooner, there are only a couple of events left in the show to report on. These are (times SLT):

Sunday, May 24, 2018

• Sensuality Photo Challenge Winners Announced.
• 13:00 – 14:00 Sinful Event with Erika Ordinary (L$2,000 Bosh Gift Card Giveaway – Adult Furniture).
• 23:59 – Exhibition ends.

However, you still have time to visit the exhibition.

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• Kultivate Sensuality Exhibition (Legion’s Cove, rated Adult)

CybeleMoon (aka Hana Hoobinoo) is an artist oft featured in these pages. Her mixed media art is renowned for its fabulous richness of tone, balance of light and shade, depth of symbolism and – most poignantly – its wonderful framing of narrative that makes any exhibition of her work in Second Life utterly unmissable.

There are many ways to explore Cybele’s work, some of which I’ve touched upon in writing about it. However, there is one aspect that I’ve not really explored in words thus far; one that Cybele herself examines in her latest solo exhibition The Spaces Between Heaven and Time, which is currently on display the the Kultivate Signature Gallery.

I often use doorways, windows, bridges and solitude in my images as a way of conveying my impression of stopping the world and perceiving my own reality in the shifting tapestry of time.

– CybeleMoon

Through this series of images Cybele explores her relationship with her art and the idea of liminality – that as an artist (and indeed we, as observers of her art) – she stands on a threshold between two states: the reality she experiences rooted in the physical world, and the worlds presented through her images.

In the strictest sense, liminality is used to define the state of ambiguity that is said to exist within a rite of passage, in which participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete. With Cybele’s art, however, I would suggest ambiguity or disorientation have but a small role to play (if any at all). Rather, that in facing her art, we are more in a state of enticement or longing; what we see in each piece offers us a glimpse of a world that calls softly to us to enter – a place we desire.

There is more here as well; a nuance that is both subtle and yet entirely fitting given the state of the world as it stands in May 2020 and in the midst of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. It’s a careful, unobtrusive reminder that solitude and / or being alone is not necessarily the a contrary state of being (as some seem to believe). Rather, it allows one to give time to self – to appreciate, to learn, to relax, to enjoy, to reflect – to create. In these times of social distancing.

The manner in which the images reflect the themes within this exhibition offers an further nuanced layer to it. Take Dr. Chandra, Will I Dream for example. Through it, we can witness the beauty of solitude as reflected in the single outstretched arm and the simple, delicate pleasure offered by passing a hand lightly over the flowers in a field, while the idea of liminality sits within the title of its title, which comes as a quote from the climax of the film 2010: The Year We Make Contact, in which HAL 9000 sits on the threshold between two realities, whilst the words themselves reflect our very questioning of the nature of life.

The Spaces Between Heaven and Time is a beautifully nuanced exploration of ideas through art – one that absolutely not be missed.

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• Kultivate Signature Gallery (Water Haven, rated: Moderate)

Currently open at Melusina Parkin’s gallery is Roadside, her latest collection of images taken from around Second Life, which will continue through May and June. Presented in Melu’s familiar and captivating close-up style, they present a series of pictures with a theme of road trips – but with a very specific focus, as she explains in the introduction to the exhibition:

Diners, motels, pump stations, garages are elements of a “road popular culture” developed in wide spaces crossed by monotone and endless roads. We can’t imagine a motorway without them.

Like mountains, hills, fields, lawns and rivers, they are part of any landscape we see when travelling through the country.

– Melusina Parkin

So it is that we have a series of images of motel signs, petrol (gas) stations and pumps, parked vehicles, wooden walls of motel cabins and more, each one offering a unique take on the idea of the Great American Road Trip. Within them are many of the icons of that tradition – the coupé with its top down, the ribbon of dead-straight road vanishing into the distance, the metal-sized roadside diner, the pannier-laden motorbike, and so on. However, they are presented in such a way that rather than simply offering a scene for us to appreciate, Melu once again frames them in a manner that invites a story.

Take Roadside 3, for example: a battered yellow coupé sits parked in the foreground, inviting us to consider it: it’s condition, who might own it, where might they be going, and so on. Then, beyond it and through partially shaded windows, we can see the familiar bright red vinyl seating of a diner – something that always inspires a feeling of warmth and comfort, and our thoughts are similarly comforted with ideas of good food and rest in a friendly environment, whilst also broadening the story of the owners of the car: what might they be eating, what conversations are going on at their table, and so on.

Similarly, Roadside 5, with the motorcycle parked before petrol (gas) pumps immediately spins out thoughts of the freedom of riding the open road through to (perhaps) thoughts of iconic road trip films like Easy Rider. And so it goes on around the four walls of the gallery space (a single room at the top of her store).

There is perhaps a wider context for this exhibit as well. June will mark Second Life’s 17th anniversary with the familiar Second Life Birthday celebrations taking place. The theme for this year’s event, the theme is road trips and vacations, so Melusina’s Roadside might be said to offer a lead-in to the celebrations.

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• Melusina’s Gallery (Time portal, rated General)

One of the best ways to see art in Second Life is to visit the many boutique galleries that can be found across the grid. I say this because they generally have limited space, and so offer a small number of artists on exhibition, allowing a visitor to better appreciate the art on offer without feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work or the number of artists.

Take Michiel Bechir’s gallery, for example. The latest exhibition there features the work of four artists: two offering individual exhibits, and two forming a joint exhibition.

With Sunrises, RoseHanry presents a collection of eight images on that subject, with her introduction:

The theme for this exhibit was born when I visited the amazing private SIM “Vintage Lace” owned by the talented Skip Staheli and Delinda Dench. I took a photo that I posted on Flickr by the name a new sunrise which is included in the collection of photos in the exhibition.

I grew up near beaches where I had the privilege to watch sunrises and sunsets building the skies in fascinating lights and colours, and I have tried to re-create that magic on my works in a different way that I am use to doing.

– RoseHanry

The result is a selection of eight tonal pieces ranging from monochrome through sepia to full colour that offer personal. In particular this use of tones helps to bring out the rich differences a sunrise can bring, from the seemingly black-and white of the very early dawn, when the Sun is so low on the horizon when facing it, the light seems to wash colour from your surroundings, through the the orange brightness that comes as the Sun climbs high enough for its light to be refracted by the early morning haze.

Across the foyer is an exhibition by Ethan Hawkins, offering a mix of landscape and avatar studies, with a lean towards the latter. These avatar images are of a personal nature for the artist, reflecting as they do his relationship with his SL partner, Tresore. However, they each represent scenes anyone who has been in a relationship will both recognise and empathise with the emotions they represent.

Ethan’s landscape images are similarly evocative, offering romantic views of locations in Second Life which have a sense of having been painted without the appearance of being overly post-processed. This exhibition is rounded-out a a series of four images of waterfowl and an owl that truly bring the subject matter to life.

The upper floor of the gallery features a joint exhibition by Ladmilla and Eli Medier, who between them run The Edge Gallery. They are perhaps best known for sharing Ladmilla’s images with Eli’s words, and have oft been featured in these pages. Here they share their images and styles. Both are accomplished in capturing pictures that offer a story, with their images here forming nicely contrasting, yet complimentary sets.

Rounding out the gallery’s art is a selection of Michiel’s own landscape images, featuring some of the many locations across Second Life, with this selection carrying an emphasis on green.

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• Michiel Bechir Gallery (Embrace, rated Adult)