Tag: Art 2026

It’s been a while since I’ve directly written about the work of Sisi Biedermann, an artist working in multiple mediums to present captivating art from Second Life and the physical world and presenting them in-world.

Given this, it was a delight to be able to take an opportunity to drop into an exhibition by Sisi which is currently being hosted by Owl Dragonash at her excellent boutique gallery, Maison de la Chouette, and also to visit Sisi’s new personal gallery space, Magic Art.

Sisi has worked in multiple mediums over the years – watercolours, oils, digital, acrylics – presenting pieces covering landscape art, still life, portraiture, digital mosaics and more.

I joined Second Life in 2007, and back then I never realised how much this would mean to me. Back then I had just started painting with acrylics after a very long break where I raised my children and looked after my family and my work. I started taking photos in Second Life in 2008, and have developed my style ever since.

– Sisi Biedermann on her art, 2017

Since first introduced to her art almost a decade ago, I’ve been a confirmed fan; all of her work is utterly unique and inspirational – and frankly, I at times feel I haven’t covered it as much as perhaps I should. With her most recent exhibition at Maison de la Chouette, Sisi has chosen the same title as her new personal gallery space: Magic Art, neatly linking both gallery and exhibition together in both name and theme.

Both present Sisi’s still life art with a focus – I believe I’m correct in saying – on watercolour pieces. At Maison, the theme is largely that of beautiful pieces of plants and flowers, whilst at Sisi’s personal gallery space this also broadens into studies of cats  – whether her own or not, I’ve no idea, but given she does appear to be a cat lover (something we have in common!), I would not be surprised if they were.

What is clear is that all of these pieces have been beautifully executed as paintings, and then framed and uploaded to Second Life as outstanding pieces of art fit to grace any SL home.

The move to the new gallery space seems to reflect the start of a new chapter in Sisi Second Life in which she has scaled back on the overall size of her gallery – which she also used to host exhibitions by other artists – which, after almost 20 years of activity in Second life is perfectly understandable! The important thing here is that Sisi has not withdrawn from SL as a medium for artistic expression and its ability to help promote physical world art; she’s simply refocused.

On an entirely personal note, I will admit to missing elements of Sisi’s digital art within her new gallery space; perhaps this will come with a changing of exhibition theme. I say this not because Sisi’s paintings are lacking in any way, but simply because her digital art and collages are very much a part of her artistic expressiveness and also a joy to behold, so I hope there is an opportunity to see some of them in the future.

In the meantime, Magic Art, whether seen at Sisi’s own space or at Owl’s Maison de la Chouette, is a magical exploration of paintings from the physical world, offered for appreciation in the digital and not to be missed!

Slurl Details

• Maison de la Chouette (Novatron, rated Moderate)
• Magic Art (Modest, rated Moderate)

Maven Art Collective is a new arts community in Second Life open to all those who produce and present art via the platform Life, be they in-world photographer-artists, physical world artists using Second life as a medium to reach a broader audience and / or 3D artists working in prims or mesh.

Founded by Amari Maven of Maven’s rentals, working with artist Janus Fall (the collective’s Art Director), the collective is based in one quarter of Maven Isle. Focused on a large main events and exhibition hall, together with a garden space for 3D art,  the Maven Art Quarter also provides individual boutique gallery spaces free of charge for artists wishing to display and sell their art.

However, there is one small catch (so to speak): Maven Art Collective is about involvement, not just providing space. Those joining will be asked to actively engage with the Collective by participating in group events, mounting their own (or joint) exhibitions and helping promote the Collective and art in Second Life as a whole. Which, in return for a free gallery space is a very fair exchange.

If you are interested in joining the Collective, please contact Janus Fall or Amari Maven in-world.

Inaugural Exhibition

Friday, August 7, 2026 saw the opening of the Collective’s inaugural exhibition within the main gallery space, featuring current Collective members Anja (Neobookie); Sisi Biedermann; Zia Branner; Cass (cassandra Ushimawa); Alexandra Costanza; Duraya; Hadiya Draper;  Eta (etamae); Sharon Emerald (3d Dismantled); Janus Fall; Leica Frame (LeicaFrame); Kayly Iali ; JakeloveAdeer; Life Suki and WVP (Traci Ultsch). Together, the artists offer a rich blending of art and expression to present an excellent and engaging exhibition.

As well as exhibitions like this, the main gallery and spaces within the Collective’s Art Quarter will be used to promote art in Second Life through special events, showcases and celebrations across the artistic medium.

Again, if you are an artist interested in becoming an active member of the Maven Art Collective, do be sure to contact Janus or Amari in-world.

If you appreciate artistic expression in Second Life, do be sure to pop along to the gallery for this first exhibition – and, if you are so minded, don’t forget to subscribe to the Collective’s in-world Group to keep abreast of news and updates!

Slurl Details

• Maven Art Collective (Maven Isle, rated Moderate)

Currently being hosted through until the end of August 2026 at the Savoy Rooftop Gallery, Creations Park is Atmospheric Second Life, a collection of photographs captured by Babs Belmonte (Babette Bellios) from across Second Life.

This is an engaging collection of 40+ images showing Second life in its many facets as a world of natural beauty by capturing popular locations across the grid and presenting them in a manner which encourages the eye and imagination.

Presented in a variety of styles from near-watercolour in look and wash (such as Deadwood, Forgotten Waters, and Still Among the Reeds) through to bordering on photo-real (e.g. Silent Anchorage, Towards Tranquillity, The Sentinels and Moonlight), thee collection is reached varied in its approach to its subject as befitting the nature of Second Life. In doing so, they also underscore the artist’s sensitivity to the places she captures and her use of both EEP and post-processing to create both mood and narrative.

The latter two – mood and narrative – is evidenced throughout. These are not only pieces intended to reflect Second Life, but to draw one into it;  framing, cropping, focus all serve to generate a story behind each piece, one that reaches beyond its title to draw the audience into it. As a further individual example – The Quiet Way – it immediately draws the eye across the rickety bridge and instils a desire to see what lies within the grove of trees on the other side.

I have been capturing the beauty of Second Life through photography for several years, and I continue to be inspired by the incredible diversity I discover as I explore its ever-changing landscapes and communities. Every image is a reflection of the unique moments, creativity, and atmosphere that make Second Life such a remarkable virtual world.

– Babs Belmonte describing her Second life photography and her inspiration

I also confess to loving the appearance of photobombing within Welcome to the Beach. This is just utterly delightful and, being alongside the exhibition’s landing / entry point, it really opens the mind to appreciating all that Babs has brought together for this exhibition.

Loosely split into a series of themed elements – nature, seascapes, and the “artistic every day”, all of which flow one into the next such that they gently overlap rather than being rigidly demarked, Atmospheric Second Life is a richly engaging collection.

Slurl Details

• Atmospheric Second Life (Creations Park, rated Moderate)

If I had to say where I felt most alive in my life, or name the place I long for most, or the one I would want to visit again, the answer is: Moscow.

So notes artist and Second life resident Kirjat Umarov in introducing his exhibition The Autumn Sun at Gorky Park and other Stories, which opened at Mareea Farrasco’s IMAGOLand & Galleries on July 21, 2026.

This is a very personal collection of pieces, centred on a celebration of Gorky Park, which Kirjat notes he has been able to visit in both in spring and winter whilst in Moscow, but never in autumn. Thus within this exhibition we have original art which starts from the idea of imagining Gorky Park in the months of autumn, and which broadens into so much more.

This is not, however, a series of “traditional” paintings of landscapes directly reflecting the park and its physical structures as we might see them (photos of which can be found in one corner of the exhibition space). They are abstract in nature, suggesting through their use colour – the yellows and golds of autumn, the pale blues of colder autumnal sky, the greys and darker colours of autumn’s wetter moments.

At the same time, the colours are a reflection of memories of Gorky Park and Kirjat’s life as a whole; the warmer, bright shades representing happier times, the darker colours hinting a times apart or times of sadder thoughts. Within several of the pieces are blocky forms, silhouetted outlines: a church, suggestions of a city’s skyline. They serve both as echoes of the city and nation in which the park sits, and of those more personal memories and emotions.

Thus, within all of the pieces lay – as Kirjat calls them – “painted memories”, real or imagined, both from his own experiences and of emotions that might be felt on seeing a familiar place but dressed in the colours of a season for the first time. In this way, they draw us into them and interpret them, gently putting our imaginations to work as they provoke the senses. They create snippets of stories which might be shaped by our own emotions and memories to produce new stories; stories which are not necessarily bound to Gorky Park or Mother Russia. The paintings simply invite us to drift through the libraries of our own memories of places visited, times remembered, times missed, and the seasonal colours of emotion and imagine.

An engaging selection of original physical world art.

Slurl Details

• IMAGOLand & Galleries (Desert Sands, rated: Moderate)

Gradient mesh is a technique for creating complex colour transitions across a surface. Using a grid of adjustable control points, or nodes, it allows multiple colours to blend smoothly in multiple directions such that they flow and create a sense of shape, light and shadow far more organically than is possible when using more traditional linear, radial, diamond or angular gradients, where the transition is along a line or radiating from a single or central point, and with much finer blending than might be achieved using blur gradient.

Within graphics design, gradient mesh can be used in things like user interface design for apps and web pages, through to creating digital art in a rich variety of styles and genres, and with extraordinary depth. It is a technique particularly effective in producing photo-realistic digital art.

This latter use is amply and marvellously demonstrated by Bjarni Guero Danae (Ominur) at his Galeria Danae, home to his exhibition The Art of Gradient Mesh.

Set within a modern, minimalist skybox space, this is a comprehensive collection of gradient mesh art not just because each piece has been created using the technique, but because each image is shown with its corresponding mesh of control points used to give it colour and depth. Thus, we see both the art and the means by which it was given its final form.

From musical instruments to human studies, cars, bottles, flowers, headwear and more, Bjarni presents the rich tapestry of opportunities the technique presents to create the most eye-catching art. I particularly found the pieces featuring musical instruments particularly engaging, given the eye and skill for manipulation of control points to generate a piece of art might be likened to the skills involved in reading music and playing an instrument.

Some of the pieces are so reach in depth, colour, form and presence it is hard to consider them anything but photographs of real objects. Just take the four images of drinks to the left of the bar or (my personal favourite, given I use one to warm to warm the alcohol  – usually kahlua -when making a liqueur coffee!) the brandy warmer, together with the image looking up at a sculpture.

As to why he creates gradient mesh art, Bjarni gives a personal reason as rich and approachable as the pieces on display:

Gradient mesh work makes the world disappear. It makes noise go quiet. It challenges my creating problem-solving, and being good at this helps me be better at everything else. Yes, it is time-consuming … But at the end, it is the satisfying feeling of accomplishment. It’s what I do to relax after designing for others all day long.

Those are perfectly understandable sentiments; because of them, we are all able to enjoy the pieces displayed at Galeria Danae not just because of the manner in which the reveal the structure of gradient mesh so vividly, but because they are all genuinely and uniquely works of artistic refinement and beauty.

Do be sure to visit!

SLurl Details

• Galeria Danae (Peaceful Land, rated Adult)