“This exhibition is a summary of the last fifteen years of my work as an artist; mostly as a Second Life artist.” Bamboo Barnes says of her exhibition Ko Ko Ko Ko, which opened at Frank Atisso’s Artsville in Second Life on June 1st, 2026.
Occupying three sky platforms – one forming the entrance level and the other two the gallery levels, all linked via a teleport system which also connects back to Artsville’s ground level – this might be said to be something of a retrospective of Bamboo’s art, although I found myself looking on it more as an introspective celebration of her work.
Artsville, June 2026: Bamboo Barnes – Ko Ko Ko Ko
That I use the term “introspective” with regards to Bamboo’s work should come as no surprise; her work is rich in both her use of colour and framing and in her ability to offer reflections of her inner self; reflections that very often chime with our own, becoming something personal to both artist and viewer.
“Celebration” is equally valid in that the pieces within the exhibition do reflect the many facets of Bamboo’s art; art which has developed and changed over the years whilst remaining indelibly Bamboo. In this it also celebrate the fact that many of these changes have caught Bamboo herself by surprise, as someone who acknowledges that in life, she is uncomfortable with change.
There were times when my work took unexpected turns. Maybe it was inevitable. I came to love those changes in my creative path — otherwise I would not have continued loving my own art.
Bamboo Barnes
Artsville, June 2026: Bamboo Barnes – Ko Ko Ko Ko
Discomfort with change is also something that resonates in all of us. Few people like uncertainty in which the outcome cannot be foreseen; we’re often far more content to maintain the status quo. But without change we risk atrophy – and that is a state which cannot be applied to Bamboo’s art. It has grown and changed over the years, often in the most subtle of ways, each new experiment or turn of style adding to the sum total of her ability to express, to touch, to engage with us.
Bamboo notes that the term “ko” carries multiple meanings, whilst “koko” can mean “here”. I’m personally please that she is here in SL, quietly creating images and art, gently prompting us to consider who and where we are through the prism of her own self-reflection.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery Annex: Nowhere B – Homebody Surrealism
As I continue to try to get back into regular blogging (and catch up with the backlog of invites and suggestions – please bear with me on this!), it was off back to Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, operated and curated by Dido Haas, to peek at a couple of exhibitions, one of which is by one of my favourite SL artists.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery Annex: Nowhere B – Homebody Surrealism
That exhibition presented a highly personal journal (if you will) of Nowhere’s journeys through Second Life. With Homebody Surrealism, he presents another series of images which again carry with them something of a personal subtext, but which take the observer in an entirely different direction, as Nowhere explains:
Homebody Surrealism is a domestic surrealist exploration—an inward journey into the strange and the marvelous hidden within ordinary life. It proposes that the familiar spaces we inhabit daily are not dull or exhausted, but quietly enchanted. Within the home, the most mundane objects become portals to wonder. An egg, a drawer, a window, a curtain—each holds the potential for revelation…
Homebody Surrealism invites us to look again, more slowly and more attentively. When attention deepens, the ordinary begins to shimmer with ambiguity and quiet mystery. The domestic world—so often dismissed as trivial—reveals itself as fertile ground for imagination, introspection, and awakening.
Nowhere B.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery Annex: Nowhere B – Homebody Surrealism
The result is a collection of highly imaginative and engaging images and pieces which are captivating when first seen, then quietly beckon us in closer to decern more of what they wish to say – or at least, invite us to see beyond the “mundane”, as Nowhere puts it.
Given the nature of the pieces, their potential subjective resonance and that touch of subtext, I’m not going to colour your thinking by offering my own thoughts on the pieces within Homebody Surrealism. Rather, I invite you to visit the exhibition yourself and see them first hand.
The main hall at Nitroglobus sees the return of Bamboo Barnes with her fifth exhibition there, one which is deeply introspective in nature and form, carrying with it the title Infinity Wall.
Bamboo is, for me, one of the most vibrant, evocative, provocative, and emotive artists in Second Life. Her work is far removed from that of other artists who mix digital techniques with images from the physical world and those from SL. Her work is both vibrant and open in its use of colour and tone, yet also deeply introspective – that latter often brought forward by her use of those same assertive colours and tone. her themed exhibitions are thus a window into art – and into the artist herself.
This is very true of Infinity Wall, which is one of the most personal of Bamboo’s exhibitions. This is very much noted by Bamboo herself:
It felt like a small universe—perhaps because both of our lives had somehow fallen out of sync with the world. Now I find myself asking questions I cannot answer alone, and at times I shrink from the pain they bring. It is like standing before an infinity wall, staring at a black dot as it slowly fades away. I no longer know where I stand—whether I am falling or floating. The only certainty is that there is nothing beneath my feet.
…Nothing is perfect, and once something begins, it moves inevitably toward its end. This is a quiet, unchangeable truth we must accept. Until that moment arrives, we drift, sometimes sink, and continue trying to create a universe we cannot hold onto forever.
The majority of the images in this collection are self-portraits; pieces which are deeply emotive and beautifully telling in their stories. From individual pieces through to a triptych, these pieces reveal Bamboo’s talent for setting mood and suggesting thoughts and feelings – and offering insight into her own thoughts and reflections.
As with Nowhere B’s exhibition, Infinity Wall must be seen directly rather than seen through the lens of my thinking in order to be properly heard in its messages. As such, I again thorough recommend a visit.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, March 2025: Bamboo Barnes – The Shape of the Whirlwind
Art exhibitions at Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, operated and curated by Dido Haas, are – as I’ve frequently mentioned in these pages – among the best in Second Life in terms of visual content, theme, richness of expression and the challenges Dido tends to offer the artists invited to exhibit at her gallery. However, there are times when the artist appearing at the gallery has a reputation for offering thematic art intended to to provoke the grey matter into cogitation without any prompting from Dido.
One such artist is Bamboo Barnes. To me, she is one of the most vibrant and emotive artists in Second Life. She is also one of the most unique in terms of content and in the manner in which she mixes digital techniques, blending images captured in SL wand via digital means, her use of vibrant colours and abstracted overlays. In doing so, her art is always marvellously expressive, reflecting her inner thoughts, feeling and perceptions, whilst also being strongly assertive in its own right. This latter aspect additionally allows individual pieces speak directly to the observer, both in terms of the over-arching theme of an exhibition, and as pieces standing in their own right.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, March 2025: Bamboo Barnes – The Shape of the Whirlwind
Such is the case with The Shape of the Whirlwind, Bamboo’s latest exhibition (at the time of writing!) to be hosted by Dido at Nitroglobus. However, there is a further unique twist (or two) about this exhibition. The first is that it is – if my memory is not failing me (which is entirely possible!) – this is the first exhibition to span both halls of the gallery, both the main hall and the Annex.
The other element of uniqueness with this exhibition is that I’m not going to wibble on about it here, as is usually my wont. This is because Bamboo has provided an excellent introduction to both The Shape of the Whirlwind and the thought processes that brought her to create the pieces displayed and which are reflected through the pieces. I think her own words introduce the exhibition in such a way that any exposition / interpretation on my part would be little more than a distraction. So, I’ll let Bamboo speak for herself.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, March 2025: Bamboo Barnes – The Shape of the Whirlwind
I have never been inside a vortex, but I wonder what the distortion of the world would look like when being able to see from the inside.
The concept of a vortex—something that twists and distorts the flow of reality—becomes a metaphor for the hidden, often imperceptible forces that shape our lives and selves. Inside a vortex, the world would bend and stretch, the familiar becoming strange, as if time itself were folding in on itself. The distortion of sight would be overwhelming, pulling you into a realm where what you think you know, what you think you see, slips away from your grasp, much like memories that fade or shift when you try to grasp them.
– Bamboo Barnes on The Shape of the Whirlwind
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, March 2025: Bamboo Barnes – The Shape of the Whirlwind
Rising just a little against gravity, you might glimpse what is hidden—perhaps the edges of your own consciousness, which you usually only sense in fragments. And yes, memories, while they seem solid, can distort the truth, shaping how we see the world around us. The tension between the unseen forces and our struggle to maintain our sense of self would feel like a constant, gentle pull, drawing us into something greater than our understanding, yet more familiar than we’d like to admit.
At least remembering something, someone—however fleeting—might be a tether to a time before the vortex, a trace of what we were, or what we might still become. What do you think? What is it that you’re trying to remember or hold onto through this?
– Bamboo Barnes on The Shape of the Whirlwind
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, March 2025: Bamboo Barnes – The Shape of the Whirlwind
A genuinely rich and engaging exhibition given added depth through the use of animated elements (sometimes directly, sometimes as additional overlays) which mirror the twisting tumbling nature of thoughts and emotions are they surround us, and further supported as well as 3D elements by Bamboo and pieces by other artists placed within the gallery space by Dido, The Shape of the Whirlwind should seen and appreciated.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, December 2023: Bamboo Barnes – Broken Chair
My idea of art is not the refraction of light, but the expression of what lies behind it. I want to create something that is inside a person, something that has a fragrance like fermented love. Therefore you rarely find anything cheerful or uplifting in most of my work, nor do I want to express such things.
Thus states Bamboo Barnes in discussing her latest exhibition – and her third at Dido Haas’ Nitroglobus Roof Gallery over the years – which opens on December 11th, 2023.
As I’ve frequently noted in these pages, Bamboo is one of the most vibrant, evocative, provocative, and emotive artists in Second Life. Her work is far removed from that of other artists who mix digital techniques with images from the physical world and those from SL, in that it it is both introspective and yet often – through the use of colour and tone – strongly assertive such that individual pieces can both reflect her inner thoughts, personal perceptions and feelings whilst at the same time speaking directly to the person viewing them in an equally personal and also entirely unique way.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, December 2023: Bamboo Barnes – Broken Chair
Such is the case with Broken Chair, an exhibition of 19 studies by Bamboo, supported by a series of 3D elements by the artist, some of which reflect the title of the exhibition, others of which might appear more abstract at first glance.
The images are predominantly monochrome in nature, colours – outside of red – sparingly used. Each offers its subject in Bamboo’s trademark style: a face, sometime in full, sometimes in profile, often in sharp focus, just as often not; each one looking outwards at or beyond the observer, expression and pose – even when the eyes are unseen – giving voice to the tumult of thought and feelings tumbling through the mind within the head. What these thoughts and feeling might be is up to observers to interpret for themselves, but there is more than enough within each one to resonate with each of us, and cause a sense of understanding and familiarity.
Where colour is used, it is done so in emphasis of a mood, emotion or feeling, whilst the title of the exhibition speaks to what so often lies within us all: the introspections that are so personal we cannot give voice to them; thoughts that can – whatever their origin or cause – leave us spiralling in silence, trapped without ourselves – but which also demand expression, be it through physical or mental reflection. These are thoughts which can leave us feeling less-than-whole – or broken, if you will. Yet even whilst bringing forth this sense of brokenness, such thoughts and feelings can so often also impart an inner strength or drive to overcome, to mend; a determination to learn, to overcome, to become more whole and move forward in life.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, December 2023: Bamboo Barnes – Broken Chair
So yes, we might so often feel broken inside, but as with a broken chair, we have the ability within ourselves to mend and heal. Perhaps not fully – even a repaired chair can so signs of the work applied to make it so – but enough to carry us forward in life. And within Broken Chair, Bamboo perhaps reminds us of that such feelings – and the drive they encourage – are both common to us all.
Midway through its run at Selen’s Gallery, operated and curated by Selen Minotaur, is Far From by Bamboo Barnes, featuring previously unseen works by the arts drawn together in a theme I always find fascinating: the nature of time and its relationship with personal experiences and the formation of self.
It’s a subject I’ve been fascinated by since first reading Burnt Norton, the first poem in what would become T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, a discussion on the nature of time, the relationship between past and future and both of them with the current moment in time, alternate realities, the contrast between the experience of the modern man and spirituality, mixed with ideas of unity with the cosmos, and more. Whilst The more spiritual reflections of time and human nature are not necessarily a part of Bamboo’s Far From, the central theme of Burnt Norton’s opening (perhaps the most famous lines of the poem / The Four Quartets as a whole) was immediately brought to mind for me when reading Bamboo’s introduction to Far From.
What do you feel now if you close your eyes? Do you see the faint flicker of light that your memory gives you as you reach out in total darkness? Or is it something you wish you could have forgotten? A past that has become distant yet drawing you in heavily. The now that seems so far from it, but it is a part of you. A part of you that can never be denied.
– Bamboo Barnes, Far From
Selen’s Gallery: Bamboo Barnes – Far From
In other words, what we has gone before, given if not fully remembered – even if we no longer wish to recall it – is as much a part of us today, just as what we now do will become a part of our tomorrow; that while we might live in the “now”, we also live with the shadows and light of the past, factors which perhaps distort, or at least consciously or not, direct our way towards the future, subliminally or directly influencing as they do the decisions we make in the now.
Compare this with Eliot’s opening reflection from Burnt Norton:
Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable.
– T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton
Again, which is not to say the Bamboo’s art is intended to be any kind of visual essay on Eliot’s works; far from it – this is a subjective parallel I saw, and which other may not see or agree to. However, it is these kinds of parallels I so often find in Bamboo’s work and which – for me – further elevate her art.
That is, within Far From she offers a unique and highly visual meditation on then theme of the interconnectedness of time, just as Eliot does through the ideas he offers within the five parts of Burn Norton. Bamboo does this not only through her introduction to this exhibition, but in the manner of the images themselves. Each is distorted, some somewhat fragmented, all utilise colour in a striking manner.
Selen’s Gallery: Bamboo Barnes – Far From
These approaches are all elements which set Bamboo’s work apart from that of others, and can be found in many of her pieces. Here they combine to visually represent those memories and events which have shaped who are are now, and how we came to be who / where we are within our life (and, particularly, in our understanding of our own self). At the same time, elements of the images, combined with the 3D elements Bamboo has included in the exhibition space engage in themes of the past and present combing to shape our personal future – and that, but for decisions of the past, the idea that our life’s path might have taken a different course; the the flow of decision as much as the fluidity direct our lives.
This latter point might must clearly be suggested by the animated mosaic Bamboo presents as the landing point for the exhibition. The interconnectedness of past, present and future might also be see within those images which use repetition of images, the different colours within them underpinning the influence of past on present, and present on future (and, if we opt to extend – the manner in which the future itself informed those past actions which have brought us to where we are today.
Selen’s Gallery: Bamboo Barnes – Far From
A further beauty of Bamboo’s art is that her images can be enjoyed in their own right, as essays in style, colour, light, shade, subject and composition, each one standing entirely independently to the others around it. Thus, whether or not – like me – you opt to see an elegant artistic treatise within Far From, it offers a collection of richly engaging pieces which can each be appreciated on its own merits, making it a very worthwhile visit, and it will remain open to view through into August 2023.
Kondor Arts Centre: Bamboo Barnes – Unusual, May 2023
There are two exhibitions I recently visited in turn at the Kondor Art Centre, curated by Hermes Kondor. Both are by artists I greatly admire, and there is what might be seen as a thread of connection between them. However, given that such a thread is by no means certain, I’ll be looking at them over the course of a couple of articles, tackling them in the reverse order to how I viewed them, but rather in chronological order in terms of when they opened.
The first is that of Unusual, the latest selection of art-in-reflection-of-thought by Bamboo Barnes, which opened on April 20th, 2023 within the Kondor Art Centre’s Main Gallery.
Bamboo is, as I’ve often noted in these pages, one of the most vibrant and evocative digital artists displaying her work in Second Life. And I mean this not just in terms of her use of colour or form or subject – but in the way she layers her work both physically and narratively, such that it offers a depth of emotion and sense of being, it draws the observer into it, dominating both the space the work occupies and to the eye and mind.
Kondor Arts Centre: Bamboo Barnes – Unusual, May 2023
A major theme within Bamboo’s art is that of identity; who we actually are in life in the face of an ever-changing world, when society, ego, id, work, friends, politics, and more continually impinge on us. Sometimes these pressure encourage us to flow and change and reach beyond who we are; at others they demand we conform; confine ourselves to ideas and dreams others see as being what (or all) we can achieve, thus preventing “disappointment”; or that we “stay in our lane” (always a pejorative outlook often born from a mistaken idea of self-privilege by those voicing it), and so on.
Unusual takes the latter point – that we must conform and limit ourselves without crossing the lines others have drawn for us – and asks what happens when we decided to step beyond them, much as Bamboo has done, particularly the mix of joy and wonder an excitement (and the sometimes chaotic results of doing so). These disparate elements can be seen – to my eyes, at least – in a variety of ways. Take, for example, the use of geometry in some images, with its suggestions of limits or boundaries.
Kondor Arts Centre: Bamboo Barnes – Unusual, May 2023
Elsewhere, the use of repetition within some images might be seen as a dichotomy in its statement; on the one hand, it might appear to say “we are free to express ourselves, but only so far; we should still conform”; hence the repeated poses, limited used of colour palette within them – as with Kagerou A, as an example. At the same time, the very title (which might be translated as “heat shimmer” (or “haze”) or “mirage”) suggests how we are all so much more than we appear to be, the mirrored nature of the piece adding to the notion that we have more than one side to our nature, despite those aforementioned constraints others would place on us.
Then there is the use of colour in some of the pieces; vibrant hues which seem to have a life of their own, echoes perhaps that sense of excitement, wonder and chaos as we step beyond the constraints to which we have been subjected. All of this perhaps comes together most of all within the 3D piece Little Girl Blue, with its constant movement and shifting images suggesting the true fluidity and changing nature of life.
Kondor Arts Centre: Bamboo Barnes – Unusual, May 2023
However, in this I’ve said enough with which to colour your thoughts; as such, I invite you to hop over to the Kondor Art Centre and view Unusual for yourself.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 