Tag: Bamboo Barnes

Bamboo’s Blue Snow in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Kondor Art Centre: Bamboo Barnes – Blue Snow

Blue Snow is the title Bamboo Barnes has given to her most recent exhibition, which opened at the Kondor Centre Art Gallery (curated by Hermes Kondor) on February 27th. I’m not sure of the origins for the title, but that hardly matters given the theme of the exhibition and the nature of Bamboo’s art.

Bamboo is a self-taught digital artist who started producing her work using Second Life in the form of avatar studies and images of other people’s art installations. In 2013 she started producing original pieces, and in the eight years since, she has developed a unique and striking style that has not only been exhibited in virtual spaces but also in the physical world.

Kondor Art Centre: Bamboo Barnes – Blue Snow

For this exhibition, Bamboo plumbs personal depths, exploring her growing understanding of art as a means of expression and her development as an artist.

In her introduction to the exhibit she notes that “Art is never finished, just abandoned”, a statement that might at first seem a little confusing, as clearly, many pieces of art do stand as finished items – hence why we can see them in galleries and museums, reproduced, sold, hanging on our walls at home, and so on.

Kondor Art Centre: Bamboo Barnes – Blue Snow

However the capitalisation of “Art” is important: signifying that rather than referencing any singular piece of art, Bamboo is referring to the medium in all its forms, be it painting, photography, sculpture, models, the written and / or spoken word and so on; recognising that it is always evolving, and that artists can change genre, format and style, taking on some and abandoning others as they find new or different ways to express themselves.

As is usual with Bamboo, all of the pieces offered within Blue Snow are endlessly vibrant, both in terms of the colours used and the degree of life they each exude. There is a strength about each one that captivates the eye and challenges the imagination, offering stories that might – when considering the central theme of the exhibition – enfold thoughts of the artist and her relationship with her work as well as revolving around our own perceptions of who we are and where we might be going.

Kondor Art Centre: Bamboo Barnes – Blue Snow

Richly engaging, Blue Snow is another superb exhibition from one of SL’s leading digital artists.

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Bamboo Barnes at Ribong Gallery in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Bamboo Barnes at Ribong Artspace Gallery, September 2020

Bamboo Barnes is one of the most vibrant, evocative, provocative, and emotive artists displaying her work in Second Life. Hailing from Japan, Bamboo works with digital tools to produce pieces that are strongly assertive, both in terms their narrative depth and their ability to dominate the space they occupy, rich pieces that speak to the eye and mind.

All of this can be witnessed first-hand at her current exhibition, Receding Reality, which opened at Ribong Gallery’s Artspace 2243, and which opened on September 12th, 2020.

Bamboo Barnes at Ribong Artspace Gallery, September 2020

What is born out of me transforms like water: here is an uncertain ego and an inexhaustible feeling for those who have left.

– Bamboo Barnes

This is an extensive exhibition of work that presents pieces in a range of styles that have, per Bamboo’s description, something of a introspective nature about them. The styles themselves offer hints of Dali, Picasso, Warhol, encompassing abstract, pop-art, neo-impressionism, expressionism and neo-expressionism.

Bamboo Barnes at Ribong Artspace Gallery, September 2020

The elements of introspection comes from the faces apparent within many of the painting on offer; faces that oft carry thoughtful expressions or distant looks, suggestive of caught in memory, or are incomplete  or distorted, as if being pulled from half-remembered memories. Those that feature figures rather than facial features equally suggest distant thoughts.

As I’ve noted in the past when writing about Bamboo’s art, the emotions she experiences whilst producing a piece are a central aspect in how it eventually emerges. These emotions may be the result of her own feelings or perhaps those evoked by the music she is listening to, and her own response to the emerging piece. This tends to give her art an added depth, those emotions remaining with it and transferring to the observer the longer one regards it. There is also something almost visceral in her work through her use of colour; this in turn gives her work an attraction that pulls at the attention.

Bamboo Barnes at Ribong Artspace Gallery, September 2020

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Tranquil Droplets at Nitroglobus in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Nitroglobus: Bamboo Barnes – Traquil Droplets

Opening on Monday, June 8th, 2020 at Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, curated by Dido Haas, is Tranquil Droplets, an exhibition of art by Bamboo Barnes.

There can be few involved in the art world within Second Life who can be unfamiliar with Bamboo’s work; it is by turns vibrant, evocative, provocative, emotive and so often rich in narrative. A physical world artist hailing from Japan, Bamboo works with digital tools to produce her pieces, her finished works strongly assertive in terms of its presentation, ability to dominate the space it occupies and in the way it demands the attention of the eye and mind.

Nitroglobus: Bamboo Barnes – Tranquil Droplets
There’s hopeless life still seeking for hopes like abandoned walking shadows of people on the street, my artworks are expression of confusion of life, darkness of light and strangeness of love. I create what I see but maybe you won’t, they are about people’s reality and mind.

– Bamboo Barnes, discussing her work

Much of her works is produced entirely outside of Second Life, which presents itself – along with Flickr – as a means for Bamboo to reach her audience. Which is not to say the pieces offered in Tranquil Droplets originated beyond our digital realm; rather the reverse, in fact, as the focus here is very much on avatar faces.

Not that the pieces offered are in any way a “traditional” avatar portrait / study; far from it. Each is presented in Bamboo’s rich, evocative style such that her use of colour, digital highlighting and layering all serve to add depth to the portraits offered. This gives each piece a life of its own, an expressive richness that presents us with a sense of story.

Nitroglobus: Bamboo Barnes – Traquil Droplets

For Bamboo, emotions are a core element of her art, be they those that are invoked by the piece she is working on; those she felt at the time she started working, and / or those evoked by the music she is listening to, as well as those she sees within her subject.

All of this is strongly evident within the 17 pieces offered within Traquil Droplets, each one of which offers unique reflections of both her subjects and of various artistic techniques – abstract, modernist, hints of dadaism / collages, and impressionism, all without ever merely mimicking these styles.

Nitroglobus: Bamboo Barnes – Tranquil Droplets

As Bamboo says, these pieces are like water whose dripping echoes in the silence; once heard, it cannot easily be forgotten, except here, it is that each of these images that continue to live with the imagination long after they’ve been seen, because of their richness of colour, presentation and emotion. In other words, this is a captivating exhibition.

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