Tag: Art at the Park

The second ensemble exhibition in the Holly Kai Art at the Park series commences on Sunday, February 21st 2016, and runs through until Sunday, April 10th.

For this exhibition, we are both pleased and privileged to be featuring the work of five talented artists, who between them offer a rich diversity of art and styles. They are: Goodcross, Hana Hoo, Io Bechir, Sisse Singh and our 3D artist for this exhibition: Mistero Hifeng.

The exhibition will open with a special gala event at the Holly Kai Pavilion – see below for more details.

About the Artists

Goodcross

Anyone encountering images by Goodcross cannot help but be stunned by their richness of imagery and narrative. Covering a broad spectrum of landscapes, images of SL art, avatar studies, and composed pieces, his work is never anything like than utterly compelling.

I first encountered his work at the ever excellent Dathúil Gallery, operated by Max Butoh and Lυcy (LucyDiam0nd), and on seeing it, knew I had to see him display his work at Holly Kai Park.

“I love creativity,” Goodcross says. “The process, the people and the whole gamut of ideation. I’m utterly passionate about it. When I came to SL, I was gob-smacked by the rich graphics. As time passed by, I learnt a lot about not just photography but so many different aspects that you could use your creativity for: building, texturing, making poses, creating lights, flirting (hell yeah that’s creative too! 🙂 ), and finally making strong, enduring bonds with real people. I have been very lucky.”

Hana Hoo

Hana Hoo is a woman of many talents: artist, writer, traveller, roleplayer, storyteller and more. Her blogs, The Runes of the Gatekeeper’s Daughter and Desert Mice and Dreams, which focuses on her story writing, are a joy to read.

Hana’s art is often a wonderful mix of the physical and the virtual, the two enticingly mixed to present not so much an image, but a tale; a place where the line between our perception of what is real and what is a dream becomes blurred,the two fading seamlessly into one another.

“I am a storyteller, but at the same time I am very visual because a good image will tell a story of its own,” Hana says of herself. “I love to explore the mystery of light and shadow at play and I’m fond of both woodland and old stones. In SL I began to see some of my own stories reflected in fantasy landscapes, so I began to use some of the images I photographed here with my stories.”

In this, Hana’s work serves as something of a reflection of our own relationship with virtual environments as well; for most of us, the “divide” between our physical and virtual selves is also blurred, a space where we can ebb and flow from one to another.

On first encountering Hana’s work, I was amazed by its ethereal power and beauty, and I’m absolutely delighted that she agreed to be a part of things at Holly Kai Park.

Io Bechir

“My hope is to communicate my impressions with regard to my experiences here over the past three years,” Io says of her display at Holly Kai Park.

“During this time period I fell in love. I met some amazing and wonderful friends. I suffered a broken heart. I came to realise my own strength. I took up sailing. I found my voice as an artist, and discovered new ways to express my Self in this limitless space of ethereal light and imagination. Probably, many of the same experiences you have had.”

The result is an evocative and highly personal series of images, rich in colour, context and narrative, each one very much a story – a chapter, perhaps – in its own right. Thus Io’s display becomes an autobiography in images, embodying each of them with a power to reach deeper into us than had then been merely posed for an audience. Through them we are offered the opportunity to join with Io’s exploration of Self and share in her discoveries.

Io’s work amazed me when I first encountered it, and I’m very pleased she accepted an invitation to participate in Art at the Park.

Sisse Singh

An established Danish artist working in watercolours, gouache, powder and ink, Sisse has seen work displayed in the physical world in public and private art galleries, culture centres, government offices, banks and offices.

Inspiration for her art comes from many sources: her surrounding, nature, the people she meets and her own imagination, and at Holly Kai she presents two aspects of her work. On one deck is a series of her floral watercolours, each beautiful reproduced; on the other is a display of abstracts, portraits and landscapes. Together, the two decks allow us to witness the rich diversity of Sisse’s work.

All of the pieces are offered for sale, and in a special way: not only can you buy an in-world copy of one of Sisse’s paintings, you can also – if it is available – acquire the original in the physical world. Simply e-mail Sisse at her website, or IM her in-world, with the details of the piece you would be interested in acquiring, and she will inform you of its availability and price.

Mistero Hifeng

I’ve been an avid admirer of Mistero Hifeng’s sculptures ever since I first encountered them almost two years ago. His gallery space and his exhibitions have been a regular feature in my coverage of SL arts because they are so beautifully evocative and captivating.

Indeed, even if you are not familiar with his name, you’ve very probably come across at least one of his pieces if you are an SL explorer; his work has captured the eyes of many region holders across the grid, and as a consequence, his work graces many public and private spaces.

Mistero’s work presents a subtle blending of realities: very human figures often in very extraordinary – you might say surreal – situations, driven from deep within the imagination. Little wonder, then, that he takes a Tom Watts quote for his profile description:

I can almost always rode both the reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket . My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.

The results of this blending of reality and imagination are frequently extraordinary in look and appeal, richly evocative and perfectly suited to either indoor out outdoor display, and I hope his selected pieces at Holly Kai Park will amply demonstrate the latter.

Gala Opening

The February – March Art at the Park exhibition will officially open at 2:00pm SLT on Sunday, February 21st with a special gala event at The Pavilion, Holly Kai Park (just walk across the bridge from the landing point).

Erin68 Frog and Satin will be providing the music for the first hour, which will be followed by a live stream thereafter for those wishing to continue in the party spirit. Formal dress is requested.

Should you wish to sail to the park rather than teleport, mooring slips are available on the east side of the park, with auto-return set to one hour and re-rezzing possible from the piers.

We look forward to seeing you at Holly Kai Park!

SLurl Details

• Holly Kai Park main landing zone (Rated: Moderate)
• Holly Kai Park website

This post also appears on the Holly Kai blog.

In October 2014, I wrote about the Dutch Masters exhibition curated and mounted by Drw (Drwyndwn Tyne) at his Gallery, Tyne’s Fine Art. At the time, the exhibition made quite an impression on me, such was the sense of presence one gained in being able to view masterpieces of the Dutch Golden Age, uniquely gathered together and beautifully presented in a single location.

I’m therefore extremely delighted that Drw accepted an invitation to display his collection at Holly Kai as the inaugural exhibition in our new Art at the Garden  series.

Opening on Wednesday, January 27th and running through until 28th February, 2015, Paintings of the Dutch Masters presents 40 painting by the likes of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Ludolf Bakhuizen, Gerard van Honthorst, all beautifully reproduced and mounted by Drw, and displayed within the two terraces at Holly Kai Garden.

Each piece has been reproduced in the precise aspect ratio of the original, with an additional 15% added to allow for viewing in Second Life, thus adding to the authentic look to each of them, and care has been taken to ensure any copyrights held by the museums hosting the original pieces have not been violated. Further, they are all mounted in picture frames which heighten the feeling of viewing the pieces in person. Click on a frame, it will offer two options: Museum Card and Examine. The former will offer you a texture containing the notes accompanying the piece as presented by the gallery where it is displayed.

Select Examine, however, and you’ll be invited to click the painting again. This will place your avatar in a seated hover position and focus your camera directly on the art; thus, you are able to examine the painting in fine detail, almost as if standing before it in a physical world gallery  (should your camera fail to orient itself after clicking the painting, tap ESC once to adjust it).

Paintings of the Dutch Masters presents a marvellous cross-section of art from the period: portraits, landscapes, studies, all of which help to understand why this period in Dutch History, spanning the 17th century, was so influential; the new Dutch Republic being the most prosperous European nation at the time, leading the way in European trade, science, and art.

More than that, however, it offers the means to truly appreciate magnificent artwork for some of the great masters of their craft, side-by-side and in a manner which could not be enjoyed in the physical world, where many of the pieces are geographically separated by museums. We look forward to seeing you at the garden.

To mark the opening, there will be a special celebration at the garden terrace, from 4:00pm SLT on Friday, January 29th, featuring the music of DJ Anthony Wesburn. Anthony brings a unique style to his music in Second Life. Covering multiple genres including blues, classic rock, and jazz, he not only spinning the tunes, but brings his audience little tidbits of information on the songs and artists he’s playing. Dress code is smart casual / semi-formal.

SLurl Details and Links

• Holly Kai Garden (Rated: Moderate)
• Holly Kai Park announcement
• Tyne’s Fine Art (Rated: Moderate)

Derry McMahon and Bear Silvershade are a couple I first got to know via the Seanchai Library SL. As well as being skilled with the spoken word, both reading and acting, they’re also skilled photographers, albeit with very different styles.

Where Derry’s work is full of vibrant colour, Bear focuses on monochromatic / greyscale images of Second Life. While Bear most often tends to centre on the landscape as a whole, Derry draws in more closely into focal points for her images, although this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule for either of them. Thus, they contrast yet complement one another in their work.

As noted photographers, they have shared exhibit space in SL in the past, but Bright Lights, Dark Shadows, which opened on Saturday March 22nd, at the Timamoon Arts gallery, is rather special, as Bear explains:

This isn’t the first time I have exhibited with my partner Derry, but it is the first time we have done so on this scale and purposefully setting out to contrast our very different styles.

Although our styles differ in the extreme, many of the images in this show were taken at the same time on the same sim as we explored Second Life together.

That many of the pieces were taken within the same region and the same time, such is the difference in their approach to composition that it is not always immediately obvious – something Bear himself notes. However, this further serves to underline the character of their respective work. Individually, the pieces selected for this exhibition each tell a story of their own; when presented together like this, the two styles combine much like different voices in a chorus; both playing off one another and amplifying the other, all the time fusing into a harmony of light and colour, and grey and white.

Pieces in the exhibition are simply but effectively displayed over the two floors of the gallery, with plenty of room to wander and admire, or to sit and contemplate. The latter is appropriate, given Bear states his goal with his imagery is “to create an emotional response from the viewer – if one of my images make you cry, laugh or just think, I’ve done my job.” Derry, meanwhile focuses on trying to make her images look as real a possible, stating, “I love it when someone asks if the picture was taken in real life.” Given both of these goals, there is much to admire here, and having space to sit down and study encourages one to tarry and give all of the pictures their due attention.

This is an evocative display by two talented photographers, and one I have no hesitation in recommending to people to go and see. To Derry and Bear themselves, I’d like to say just this: congrats on a marvellous exhibition and happy “double rezday” to you both 🙂 .

Related Links

• Bright Lights, Dark Shadows SLurl (Rated: Moderate)