Diomita Maurer’s Blog

Fiona Fei (FionaFei) is one of the artists that I have featured in this blog quite often already, but not yet this year. I visited her Shui Mo Gallery (read here), I saw her installation at La Maison d’Aneli (read here), I saw “Impostor” at Sim Quarterly (read here), I saw her exhibit “Chuanghu (Windows)” at GBTH Project (read here) and I saw her installation “I Had a Dream, and You Were There” at the Hannington Art Foundation (read here).

Saturday, April 17th, her newest installation was opened at DixMix Gallery and I went there and attended the last minutes of the opening party. There was quite a crowd, mostly artists and I knew quite some of them from my art tours. The party took place outside of the Dix Mix Gallery building in front of Fiona’s installation, which is installed on a half round object, that looks like the screen of a photo studio. Hence it almost invites you to add poser and make extraordinairy pictures of avatars as part of the installation.

Fiona is Chinese by decent but spent the majority of her life in the West:
“I have a fascination with Chinese history and culture, but I often feel like I’m viewing my ancestry through a filter of Americanized information and experiences. Furthermore, my artistic background has been in charcoal and oil painting mediums, and I’ve had very little experience in actual ink-brush painting. Much of my early years were spent painting landscapes and portraits using oil paint on canvas. However, I developed a love for non-photorealism over the years as an artist. In continuation with my love of non-photorealism, I now produce Chinese ink-brush art in Second Life and exhibit my work around the grid.”
For more information look up FionaFei’s own website.

Impressions of “Spring” by Fiona Fei at DixMix Gallery (1)

If you have been to any of FionaFei’s installations before, you’ll recognise her specific style of art immediatiately. You literally enter an ink brush painting and become a part of it. If you look at the installation at DixMix Gallery built into the “photo studio screen” from a bit farer away you see some quite high mountains in the background with bushes and trees in the foreground. This time the ink-brush painted environment is not just in black and white. The bushes and trees are bloooming in red. You can also recognize a few birds, also in red, picking food from the ground.
Considering the strong third colour (red), the birds, and the bushes and trees almost exploding to new life, it does make sense that Fiona herself called her installation “Spring”.

Impressions of “Spring” by Fiona Fei at DixMix Gallery (2)

As always I had fun walking through it, seeing it from different angles and becoming part of it. Thank you Fiona for another piece of art.
Thank you Dixmix for providing and curating the DixMix Gallery, thank you Megan for building it and for contributing at it. DixMix was also present at the opening and I asked him how long FionaFei’s installation will be available. His spontaneous answer was funny considering that Fiona works with ink: “Until it rains”. Luckily that was just a joke. “Spring” by Fiona Fei will stay open until mid of May.

Landmark to Dixmix Gallery 2020
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Madori%20Bay/46/213/22
DixMix Gallery website
https://www.dixmixgallery.xyz/
FionaFei’s Shui Mo Gallery
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Dreams/149/42/2554
FionaFei’s own website
https://fionafei.portfoliobox.net/
FionaFei’s Flickr:
https://flickr.com/photos/fionafei/