Diomita Maurer’s Blog

I got an invitation of Melusina Parkin to see her newest exhibtion “Art Deco fragments” at her Melusina Photo Gallery. It has been opened on April 15th.

I am a fan of Melusina Parkin’s art. Melusina succeeds to make you focus on details, to see the hidden beauty of some designs. Her art is minimalistic, often there’re only a few elements in her pictures.

Art Deco, sometimes referred to as Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture and design that first appeared in France just before World War I. It influenced the design of buildings, furniture, jewellery, fashion, cars, cinemas, trains, ocean liners, and everyday objects such as radios and vacuum cleaners. It took its name, short for Arts Décoratifs, from the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts held in Paris in 1925.
Art Deco combined modern styles with fine craftsmanship and rich materials. During its heyday, it represented luxury, glamour, exuberance, and faith in social and technological progress.
(source: wikipedia)

The Melusina Photo Gallery is right above Melusina’s store of Art Deco furniture “Melu Deco” at Time Portal. It is one big room and the pictures are exhibited on all for walls.
In the center you find a table a table with a book about the current exhibition sold by Melusina Parkin. Those who are regular visitors to Melusina Parkin’s exhibitions know these books already:
Melusina All-in-One Exhibits allow you to keep at home the whole exhibit you visited and loved. It’s an alternative kind of the exhibit catalogue: you can hang the object on your home’s walls and enjoy the changing images. They come in four versions, that you can choose according to your home style: plain or framed, changing image by touch or in random loop. The objects are set as modifiable, so you can adapt them to your walls.

As far as I gathered the current exhibition “Art Deco fragments” is just the first of 4 exhibitions about Art Deco. It covers Art Deco as building details. If I think of Art Deco the Chrysler Building in New York City comes into my mind. It was finished in 1930 and it is a landmark for Art Deco. Melusina has at least one picture that refers to this famous building.

The top of the Chrysler Building / Impressions of Art Deco fragments by Melusina Parkin (1)

If you walk through the world with open eyes you can see many Art Deco details on buildings. These details are just to spoil our eyes. They also express that there’s more than just function in at at buildings. In addition these Art Deco details also prove that you can build beautifully without losing function.

In her exhibtion Melusina has many more examples. I’m not sure if Melusina created all the textures herself of if she jsut went through the virtual world of Second Life with open eyes and found these details. I just assume it’s a mixture of both.

Impressions of Art Deco fragments by Melusina Parkin (2)

Melusina Parkin is in Second Life since September 2008. She has been a fashion manager, a journalist, a furniture creator, a builder, a decorator and a photographer. Her work as a photographer has been showcased in more than 50 exhibitions – from which I saw just a few. Melusina has a flickr account which counts more than 13,000 (!) photographs. Extensive collections of her photos can be seen also on her blog Virtual Exhibits and on some slideshows on Youtube (links also under this post).
There’s also an online book with her Second Life exhibits 2011-2019 here.
Melusina Parkin has an own gallery at Time Portal and an own store for Art Deco furniture called “Melu Deco“. Melusina also owns a second place (Melu Space) with another gallery (Minimum Gallery), a bookstore and another “Melu Deco” inworld store.

Impressions of Art Deco fragments by Melusina Parkin (3)

I hope that I won’t miss the upcoming exhibitions with more Art Deco about buildings, interior details and interiors.
Thank you for another great exhibition. I enjoyed my visit and looking at your pictures, Melusina.

Landmark to “Art Deco fragments” at Melusina Photo Gallery
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Time%20Portal/248/101/1940
Landmark to Melu Space (Minimum Gallery, Melubooks, Melu Deco)
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lunula/192/9/21
Landmark to Melusina Parkin’s store for Art Deco furniture “Melu Deco”
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Time%20Portal/243/99/1930
Melusina Parker’s flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/melusina_parkin/
Melusina Parkin’s Virtual Exhibit blog
http://meluphoto.blogspot.it/p/home.html
Melusina Parkin’s youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVzglBiqhrOLXnAp3Qt3Zjw
On line book Second Life exhibits 2011-2019
https://www.calameo.com/books/005997622f28dd58ca75d