Tag: Art 2023

Currently open through the end of 2023 within Akiko Kinoshi’s (A Kiko) Akijima events region are three exhibitions of art I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending to readers of this blog. All three are located within the same sky platform, and thus between them make for an excellent joint visit, whilst between them presenting very different selections of art.

Sisi Biederman is someone who really needs no introduction to established patrons of art in Second Life; she is one of the most accomplished and engaging digital mixed-media artists in SL, as well as a skilled artist working in more “traditional” mediums such as photography and acrylics. Her work is utterly unique and completely captivating, offering a richness of imagination, style and colour. Her subject matter tends to be wide-ranging, covering everything from the natural world through in-world settings to the fantastical and even touching on the abstract and the near-surreal.

For this exhibition she presents some of her favourite pieces produced in 2023, bringing together a mix of images visitors can literally trace by month / season, and which although primarily digital in form, wrap themselves around genres such as abstractionism, watercolour and expressionism. With a strong focus on floral scenes, also folded into the collection is at least one memory of a place Sisi appears to have visited (and which is among my personal list of favourite places around the global I’ve been fortunate enough to visit and witness), and perhaps hints of others as well. Vibrant and fairly pulsing with a sense of vitality, this is a superb selection with which to whet one’s appetite for witnessing more of Sisi’s work.

Another physical world artist who has established a deserved reputation of producing some of the most visually expressive art in Second Life is Milly Sharple, who is the second of the three artists at Akijima.

For those unfamiliar with Milly, she is a successful artist and photographer in the physical world whose work has not only sold on a global basis, but has also been used as book and CD cover art, within promotional pieces including posters for theatrical productions and has even be used on bank cards. In 2020 she was invited to do a collaboration representing the COVID pandemic with Salvador Dali’s protégé, Louis Markoya.

Within Second Life, Milly probably initially became recognised for her fractal art – being one of the first artists to introduce this particular art-form to Second Life audiences. For several years she was also responsible for the Timamoon Arts Community, which in its day, hosted over 40 resident artists and was regarded as one of the most successful and popular art communities on the grid.

Here Milly presents a glimpse of the breadth and depth of her digital work, only touching lightly on her SL fractal art “roots” (if I might use that term). To attempt to describe these pieces would serve no purpose; as the images accompanying this article hopefully show, Milly’s work transcends mere written description and should be seen first-hand

I first witnessed the work of Guille (Antoronta) whilst visiting the Annexe of the Limoncello gallery in 2021, which at the time was hosting his exhibition Unseen Beauty (see here). He is in fact the virtual incarnation of Antonio Guillén, a noted doctor in Biology and professor of Natural Sciences whose research projects have spanned the environment, microbiology and astrobiology.

And when I say “noted”, I mean precisely that; his work has been exhibited in such august centres as the National Museum of Natural Sciences, Madrid, and has garnered awards such as Spain’s National Prize for Scientific Photography and the Giner de los Ríos Prize, the country’s most prestigious educational award, whilst his project The Hidden Life of Water received the first world award at a Google Science Fair in 2012.

Within Second Life, Guille has sought to bring the incredible beauty and diversity of the microscopic world which inhabits all of us as much as we inhabit the visible world, through such exhibitions as Unseen Beauty and his 2022 exhibition Invisible Beauty (see here) and – whilst it has now apparently closed – through his former in-world education centre El Universo en una Gota de Agua – the universe in a drop of water.

At Akijima, Guille once again allows us to dive into this unseen universe of tiny life forms through a collection of images captured via CCD and microscope, allowing is to witness this unite world of algae, ciliates, amoebae and other micro-organisms in all their glory and (at times almost geometric) forms. Offered as a set of individual slideshow focused on a specific aspect of the microscopic, these are fabulous glimpses into a universe we otherwise rarely get to see; my only small regret being that unlike Guille’s past exhibitions, this one (for whatever reason) is sans any accompanying text for the pieces (which should not be taken as a critique of the exhibition or the artist, but as a purely personal observation).

None of the art presented by the Artists is offered for sale; this is a trio of exhibitions purely for the eye and mind to appreciate. However, if you are looking for art to hang in your Second Life home, the fourth building on the platform may also be worthy of a visit. This is home to the Second Free Museum, where are from numerous artists is available free-of-charge to anyone wishing to obtain copies.

SLurl Details

• Akijima Sky Galleries (Akijima, rated Moderate)

Winter 2023 see the Best of Second Life (BOSL), operated by Regin Congrejo and Jamee Thomson (Jamee Sandalwood), host two art exhibitions within its home region, both of which I was able to visit a little earlier in the month.

The first is an ensemble exhibition, which is being held within BOSL’s main gallery. Entitled Hello Winter, it opened on December 2nd and runs through until January 13th, 2024. It features art and photography from 11 Second Life residents, some of whom are more than likely familiar names to SL arts patrons, and others may not be so familiar. They comprise: Sheba (Sheba Blitz), Dante Helios (Dantelios), Kylie (KylieQuinn), Elan (Ineffable Mote), Brion Ravens (Brian Ravenhurst), Evie Ravens (Evelyn Irelund), Hannah Starlight, Jennifer Steele (JenniferSteele Wilder), Lizzy (Lizzy Swordthain), Matt Thomson (MTH63), and Jamee Thomson (Jamee Sandalwood).

The majority have selected Second Life as their subject for their winter-themed images, although Jennifer Steele and Elan both present paintings from the physical world, and Matt Thomson straddles digital worlds with pieces that appear to have been produced world and pieces of digital abstract art which has been something of a hallmark of his.

It’s a very easy-going selection of art and images, each with its own appeal and sense of the season, be it traditional in for or more expressionist in content (if not necessarily in genre).

Down at the Waterfront Café, which can be seen if you stand on tippy-toe and look over the wall on the far side of the main gallery’s car park (and also reached vey a downhill walk commencing at the left-hand end of the wall as you look at it), is a further exhibition of Jamee Thomson’s work.

Running through until January 20th, 2024, this is actually Jamee’s first solo exhibition in something like a year, offering 11 pictures, 10 of which have been captured from within Second Life and the 11th appears to be a digital creation. Jamee’s Second Life landscapes are  instantly recognisable wherever they are seen, thanks to a combination of her use of colour and her ability to breath both depth and life into her work – and the landscapes offered within the Waterfront Café are ample proof of this.

Both exhibitions make for pleasing visits, and their proximity to one another make them an enjoyable joint visit – if you don’t fancy the walk between the two galleries (which is in itself a pleasant meander), the region’s teleport boards make hopping between the two locations easy.

SLurl Details

BOSL Innovation Pavilion is rated Moderate

• BOSL Main Gallery
• Waterfront Café

Fragments, the latest collection of digital art by Traci Ultsch now on display (into the early New Year, I believe) at Inspire Space Park / Art Planet, is a slightly unusual exhibition. Not because it is out-of-the-ordinary when placed alongside Traci’s overall portfolio – far from it; Fragments is as visually layered and abstracted as much of Traci’s other work. No, what makes it unusual – or perhaps curious might be a better term – is that it has not one, but three introductions, allowing visitors to take their pick as to which they find resonates the most.

Two of the three might be taken as reflections on life – or more particularly, how life is not something we can plan or necessarily control; at least, not beyond the most basic needs and routines. Rather, when all is said and done, it is really a fragmentary passage of time and events; actions and reactions within the greater planning which can so often become confused and oddly juxtaposed one to the next as we look back and try to recall  cause and effect.

Thus, within this exhibition – which must be viewed with Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) enabled via Preferences → Graphics for those using a non-PBR enabled viewer, Traci offers a series of panoramic (in terms of their image ratio) pictures, each one carrying within it the sense of a theme – buildings, nature, walls, plants. However, each image is fragmented into a series of elements, often presenting a different view of the same central object, each element within the complete picture carrying a beat of not-quite repetition which is almost musical in form.

Words flow through each image collage, words which Traci declares them as extracted lines from songs; however, they have about them a similar beat, one suggestive of thoughts of the past and half-reminded reflections, so matching the manner in which the images suggest juxtaposed remembrances a a half-forgotten memory. Also present within each canvas are what might been seen as reflections of other images, small and distant – or might they be reflections of the same image?  – further enhancing the idea of fragmented memories (or desires, perhaps?), confused and overlaying one another.

So it is that -perhaps –  within these images we might see personified the idea that far from being a cohesive set of steps, life really is a string of interconnected events of happenstance; some of which might well appear to be repeated (and thus give rise to our desire to understand there is a purpose to it all), when in truth there is nothing of the kind; no preordination; just random collisions of planned and unplanned events which push us onwards whilst leaving us to look back and reflect and try to make sense of it all.Or, perhaps as Traci disarmingly suggests in her third introduction to Fragments, these are images reflective of a random desire to create, trapped between hangovers and called into being by a lucid turn behind the camera lens and when hand and eye work in unison to tweak pixels on a screen. But even if the latter is true (which I somehow doubt); does this actually negate the underpinning theme offered through the first two introductions?

SLurl Details

• Fragments at Inspire Space Park / Art Planet (Shinda, rated General)