Now open at the Serena Arts Centre and Plaza is an ensemble art exhibition with something of a seasonal taste, given this time of year tends to be the time of stories, tales and magical fables, whilst also being suited to any time of the year.
Fairy Tales or the Magical Power of Dream Worlds brings together BelleAllure, Captainofmysoul, Dantelios, JanaOrchid, Mystic Audion, Sheba Blitz, Raven Cedarbridge, Barret Darkfold, Evelyn Irelund, Hermes Kondor, Pagan Lane, Magda Schmidtzau, AmandaT Tamatzui, Vita Theas and Pask Wasp, with Christian Carter providing a marvellous homage to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
Serena Art Centre and Hub, December 2024: AmandaT Tamatzui (l) and Magda Schmidtzau (r)
Each artist has been invited to submit two images on the subject of fairy tales and dreams, with the organisers describing the exhibition thus:
From past to present, fairy tales have inspired visual, decorative and performing arts. From theatre to opera, ballet, painting, sculpture, textile and cinema. Inspired by the tales in the saga, every artist fed and improved the next generation of stories with their own unique touch. Let’s embark together on a journey to dream worlds.
– Introduction to Fairy Tales or the Magical Power of Dream Worlds
Serena Art Centre and Hub, December 2024: Sheba Blitz (l) and Vita Theas
The art itself encompasses multiple genres and formats: original art uploaded to Second Life; photography captured from within Second Life, digital art created with AI assistance, avatar-centric pieces, abstract art, and more.
This results in a richly diverse selection of art, and an excellent way for those perhaps new to art in Second Life to witness an engaging cross-section of artistic expression from around the globe. All have something to say in an of themselves and the over-arching theme, but I confess to being drawn to Vita Theas’ pairing of images, which come with a folktale and poem respectively (both penned by Vita). The story is that of Elder Leaf and the Ice Warrior, the other a poem of the sea, life and cycles. Alongside of Vita’s pieces I came close to falling in love with Pask Wasp’s beautiful interpretations of two classic tales: Tom Thumb and Sleeping Beauty.
Serena Arts Centre and Hub, December 2024: Pask Wasp
All told, an engaging exhibition and worth taking time to see.
Currently open at the Michiel Bechir Gallery in Second Life over the 2024 end-of year holidays through into the New Year, is a seasonal exhibition of art and photography featuring displays by four photographers and artists, together with a small art gift market.
The four featured artists are: gallery owner Michiel Bechir, together with curator Maggie Reno, both of whom have displays on the ground floor of the gallery; with Sophie (Ishtar7Inanna) and yours truly occupying the two upper floor halls. The individual collections on display range in number from 10 to 14 images, with the majority of the picture featuring wintertime landscapes, into which indoor images celebrating the season and avatar studies have been mixed.
Michiel Bechir Gallery, December 2024 – Maggie Reno
I truly embrace the beauty and comfort of winter and December! The season seems to bring to me a sense of peace, joy, and connection. The imagery of the colours, smells, the sound of rain and the warmth of home captures a cosy, reflective atmosphere.
It’s wonderful how the contrast of snowy landscapes and seasonal colours can make even the simplest detail feel special.
– Maggie Reno, introducing her images
With her images, Maggie reflects her comments on the season by presenting a combination of outdoor and indoor images. The former, with their snowy landscapes almost monochrome in tone, thanks to the snow and skies, in which sudden bursts of rich colour – particularly a seasonal red – burst through; thus they encourage us to experience both the physical coldness of crisp winter days and the emotional warmth Maggie references. The indoor images, meanwhile, speak to winter comforts of family, celebration, love and contentment.
Michiel Bechir Gallery, December 2024 – Sophie (Ishtar7Inanna)
Each of my works captures something different, yet together they forma kaleidoscope – a reflection of how I see the world.
These pieces are stories of life told as it is: filled with joy and sorrow, love and loneliness, but always illuminated by a glimmer of hope for something better.
– Sophie, on her selection of images entitled Kaleidoscope
Sophie’s exhibit is perhaps the most broad in terms of content, featuring winter seasonal images mixed with those presenting a mix of warmer scenes and autumnal-looking settings. All are evocative and attractive, as are the avatar studies also included in this 14-piece collection.
Michiel Bechir Gallery, December 2024 – Michiel Bechir
Step into the serene beauty of winter through the lens of Michiel Bechir. This captivating collection of 12 photographs explores the quiet magic of the season, showcasing both breath-taking landscapes and intimate portraits of of people amidst the winter’s embrace.
– The introduction to Michiel Bechir’s collection Winter in Focus
Rich in tone and content, Michiel’s pieces largely focus on landscapes and settings. Each offers something of a story of the season within its frame: embarking on a winter holiday, possibly at a special retreat; the beckoning peace of the country land drifted in snow; the beauty of frosted, denuded trees seemingly on parade; the promise of a warm fire within the stout walls of comfortable cabin after a long walk through a snow-blanketed landscape, and more.
For my part, I’ve simply tried to express the sheer beauty of places I’ve visited over the winter months across the last decade. Each is a place I’ve especially appreciated and which has been lovingly created for us to enjoy. I hope they encourage you in your explorations of Second Life.
Michiel Bechir Gallery, December 2024 – Art Gift Market
Outside of the gallery and around the ice rink, is a set of 10 cabins. Nine offer a gift of an image from an artist – Raven Arcana, Tegan Tenby, TaniaAltAlbatros, Jamina Moon, Emma Jane, Sophie (Ishtar7Inanna), Hannah Starlight, Prins Evergarden and Charlotte Belladonna. The tenth offers Christmas greetings from the Gallery’s team.
Alex Bader is a name in Second Life synonymous with some of the best landscaping kits and texture sets available for use in-world (his work also being available to other platforms as well). For my part, he is one of the two landscape and plant creators who are pretty much my go-to names in Second Life when it comes to landscaping, either at home or on behalf of friends (the other being Cube Republic).
However, what many among Alex’s friends and customers may not know – and I count myself as being in both categories – is that Alex is a skilled and high-regarded graphics artist and landscape painter in the physical world. As a graphics artist, his work has won international design awards and his clients have included the Scottish Ballet, Glasgow School of Art, the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Citizens Theatre, Glasgow Art Fair, Glasgow Jazz Festival and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Alex Bader: Landscapes by Alex, December 2024
From the above list of clients, it is probably obvious that Alex hails from Scotland, where he became inspired by his father’s watercolour landscapes and love of the Scottish countryside. This stirred his own interest in and passion for both the Scottish countryside and expressing its beauty in art through both photography and painting, as well as contributing to his involvement in 3D graphics design.
I spend a lot of time enjoying the landscape, whether walking the dog through forest and on beaches or cycling in the hills and woodland of Scotland. So it’s almost inevitable that I feel the need to communicate the impact this has on me. Whether through photography, design or painting – the result is always the same process of observation, discovery and expression.
– Alex Bader, discussing his passion for art
As an artist, Alex has seen his images and paintings exhibited across Scotland, each piece finely crafted and exquisitely capturing scenes and places in all of their allure and elegance. Whilst his father worked in watercolours, Alex has come to prefer oils for his art, painting out of his studio rather than in the field, using reference images and sketches of the location he intends to reproduce on canvas. His work also ranges form expressive realism, rich in detail and beautifully representative of a subject, through to more abstracted landscapes.
Alex Bader: Landscapes by Alex, December 2024
In painting, my main aim is to convey the rich textural detail of the landscape using loose, expressive brushwork while remaining true to the colour and values of nature. Through this combination, I hope to engage the audience on multiple levels – to draw the viewer in to the scene with a real sense of place while exciting the eye artistically.
– Alex Bader, discussing his passion for art
All of this is now available for Second Life residents to appreciate for themselves, as Alex has opened an in-world gallery where limited edition digital copies of his physical world landscape art can be admired and purchased. Situated in one of Alex’s own building designs – The White Loft Skybox Interior Space (I should mention I am also a fan of Alex’s buildings, owning both his Beach House and Forest Cabin, both of which I regard as superb) – the gallery is a clean, no-nonsense space perfect for displaying art.
Alex Bader: Landscapes by Alex, December 2024
Pictures are displayed framed and sized to a realistic scale for home display in-world, with each piece limited to just 10 copies. As a particular piece is sold out, I understand Alex plans to replace it with another on the same limited edition basis. Given that each image is limited in number, purchases are not made through the displayed copy of a painting; instead, payment is made by clicking on one of white sales cubes located under each painting. As purchases are made, cubes turn from white to red and reduce in size, making it very easy to see how many copies of a given painting remain available.
Nor are people limited to just having Alex’s paintings in-world; the original oil paintings can also be purchased in the physical world as a part of a cross-over exhibition”. All of the originals are available via a dedicated part of the Studio Skye website, also called Landscapes by Alex. As with the limited digital copies, each painting is individually priced – and this price includes international shipping costs (all painting sold unframed for ease of shipping).
Alex Bader: Landscapes by Alex, December 2024
Whether seen in-world or on-line, Alex’s paintings are a delight to behold, and will grace any home, physical or virtual, so do please be sure to hop along and see for yourself.
NovaOwl, December 2024 – Raven Arcana: Melancholia
Raven Arcana is a gifted Second Life photographer-artist who is – rightly – highly regarded for her work. She frequently exhibitions in-world, often within ensemble exhibitions, as well a at her own gallery, Raven’s Eye Galley, which I had the distinct pleasure to write about in 2023. Such is the quality and depth of her work that it is always a pleasure to witness it, either as part of a broader exhibition of SL or as the focus of a solo exhibition.
The latter is very much the case with Melancholia, an exhibition of Raven’s work, hosted over the 2024/25 winter holiday season at the ground level gallery space at NovaOwl.
NovaOwl, December 2024 – Raven Arcana: Melancholia
Melancholia (or melancholy if you prefer), is a terms with a long an complicated medical history, its definition and understanding changing, at times being seen as a physical illness due to an excess of “black bile” (melaina chole) through various forms of mental disorder, often subjective in nature and description; within the last 20-ish years it has been described as a systemic disorder. All of which tend to leave us with a bleak perception of the word, generally relating it to depression.
Within cultural and literary circles, particularly from the latter half of the 16th century onwards, melancholy came to have an altogether different connotation, initially as a mark of genius – or, as English art historian Roy Strong came to perhaps unfairly calls it, “an indispensable adjunct to all those with artistic or intellectual pretentions”, before morphing again to hover between the darker, more depressive medical use of the term and one by which mood and feelings might be expressed or contained, notably those such as alone-ness, solitude, introspection, sadness, loneliness, and similar.
NovaOwl, December 2024 – Raven Arcana: Melancholia
It is very much with this latter aspect of melancholy in which Raven presents the pieces in this exhibition. Beautifully presented in monochromatic and sepia tones and taken from locations around Second Life, these are images which wrap into themselves in the most beautiful expressions of minimalism, the more poetic reflections of melancholy noted above: of being alone, of being caught in reflection or introspection; of looking upon a scene wherein memory is triggered – perhaps that of sadness or maybe of a regret warmed by the memory of what came before the actual cause of the regret. Echoes of life, love, the passage of time, the echo of passing seasons, the journey through life; the loss of contact with those who may once have been a part of our passing days; all of this and so much more is similarly bound within these images.
Framed by comments from poets, writers and artists on the natural of melancholy in both its artistic and physical interpretations, each piece in this collection carries within it a depth far greater than both its minimalist presentation or which might be suggested purely by its use of perspective. Thus each carries with it a narrative of its own whilst also forming part of the overall opus of expression to be found throughout the entire series.
NovaOwl, December 2024 – Raven Arcana: Melancholia
A truly exceptional collection; one which, if not already witnessed, should not be missed.
Monocle Man Gallery: Vanessa Jane – The Fading Year
Now open at the main gallery at Monocle Man, is an exhibition of Second Life landscape photographic art by Vanessa Jane (VanessaJane66). While Vanessa does not limit her photography SL landscapes, it is this aspect of her work that I particularly admire, so I appreciate any opportunity to view and potentially review her exhibitions.
Entitled The Fading Year, the exhibition at The Monocle Man features images of the latter half of the year, with the autumn months located in the lobby area of the gallery and continuing up the stairs to the smaller of the two exhibition rooms, while the main galleried hall is devoted to regions caught in the midst of winter.
Monocle Man Gallery: Vanessa Jane – The Fading Year
Thus we have fields of fall’s gold (to play slightly on words), streets where leaves skitter in the breeze across cobbles or are pinned to the surfaces of roads by the rain, and crops await their harvesting; all separated by a short step from foggy winter mornings, trails blankets by snow, trees dusted by frost and lodges overlooking frozen lakes.
Presented in a large format and available for sale, these are pieces perfectly capturing autumn and winter and all that might be considered romantic about them. Each piece is cropped and framed to near-perfection (with some simply sublime in their framing – like The Horse through the Trees), and very much suitable for hanging in any Second Life home. Some of the regions in which they were taken will likely be familiar to Second Life travellers, other perhaps less so; however, whether the location itself is recognised or not doesn’t really matter; just enjoy the beauty of each piece.
Monocle Man Gallery: Vanessa Jane – The Fading Year
I think that you will all agree that we are living in most interesting times. I never remember myself a time in which our history was so full, in which day by day brought us new objects of interest, and, let me say also, new objects for anxiety.
Some believe that the above quote is most likely the root for that hoary old “Chinese curse” may you live in interesting times – the “interesting” being an ironic metaphor for “times of trouble”. This is quite possibly apocryphal, given there is no similar curse in Chinese; however, Chamberlain’s original words have never really ceased to have meaning in the 116 years since they were first uttered.
Indeed, given the state of play in the modern world: wars, invasions, authoritarianism rearing its head even here in the west, pseudo-Christian nationalism, the open “othering” – or alienating – anyone daring to go against the perceived political doctrine. Perhaps more particularly, we are living in an age which is, more than ever before, being shaped by the second part of Chamberlain’s 1898 statement: we are faced with new objects of interest, which are increasingly new objects for anxiety, due to the way they have been used to amplify misinformation, divisiveness, false nationalistic pride and that over-arching alienation of differing values / belief systems / viewpoints.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Adwehe: Alienated
In this, two of the most obvious objects of anxiety being used today are social media and AI. With its global reach and ease of availability, coupled with the relative ease with which it can be manipulated both directly (fiddling with the underlying algorithms) and indirectly (flooding with bots), social media is perhaps the most manipulated channel of mass consumption in the world today; whilst with its shallow artistic derivativeness and raping of genuine art, AI has become a primary means of reinforcing falsities through visual manipulation whilst corroding objective creativity.
It is thought like these which have been foundational to Alienated, an exhibition of art by Adwehe, which forms the final exhibition for 2024 in the main hall at Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, curated and operated by Dido Haas.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Adwehe: Alienated
A multi-faceted expressionist artist working in 2D, 3D lighting, colour and sound, Adwehe uses Alienated to understand two intertwined ideas: the aforementioned ways in which tools such as social media are being used exploitatively for the benefit of a few and the detriment of the many; and her own entirely natural unease at the way tools such as AI all too often stifle genuine creativity and alienating us from genuine originality by presenting us with shortcuts to an end result by way of derivative re-use of elements and ideas appropriated by copying any and all digital images in the world.
The way in which she does so is through both artistic counterpoint and revelation through words. The images presented through Alienated are in no way dark or foreboding as one might expect from my statements above; nor are they laden with excessive narrative. Instead, they are rich in colour and free-flowing originality. As such, they speak out against the demands of black-and-white uniformity of thinking (where even grey edges of thinking are not permitted) and speak to the beauty of genuine creativity and artistic thinking AI simply cannot replicate – but all too often can smoother.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Adwehe: Alienated
At the same time, the words of the accompanying text speak to the love / hate relationship which can evolve around such apps and tools. On the one hand there is promise of new worlds of information, engaging potential for expression and exploration of technique and abilities; on the other there is the fear of the unknown and the anxiety of having to “start over” when faced with a new tool and library of content, leading to a sense of self-alienation with one’s own creativity.
Thus, the text adds a further layer of meaning and insight / interpretation to Alienated, marking it as a multi-layered collection of images which are engaging both individually and within the overall context of the exhibition.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 