Art in Second Life 2022 (23) La Maison d’Aneli March 2022

03 Mar 2022 1 Comment

by diomitamaurer in Art in Second Life Tags: , , , , , , , ,

On Wednesday, March 2nd, the latest exhibtion at La Maison d’Aneli has been opened. It features the art of Ceakay Ballyhoo, DekabristMouse, Junanuj, Tarozaemon Rossini, Vita Theas, Isabel Hermano and Antoronta.
I visited several times in the days before the offical opening.

Vita Theas used her skybox at La Maison d’Aneli for a space installation on a lower level and for displaying her pictures on the ground and upper level. The space level shows several celestial bodies. I recognized the milkstreet, asteroids and the planet earth. A figure is using the earth to ride on it like on a cannonball.
In the upper level the walls are used to display Vitao Theas’ pictures. There are stairs leading up to 2 places where you can sit and watch from there. Another stair leads to a woman with a dog who looks out of a window. And the pictures? A broad variety of pictures taken within Second Life (I think at least) and processed a little bit, either to monochrome or to blurr or to other effects.

Vita Theas is in Second Life since 2007 and has been a mamager of an art center for a decade. She has varied experiences as a maker of clothes and a builder within Second Life and she spends much time taking pictures these both for her creations and as art projects. As an arist she exhibited at several galleries and she participates in the Second Life Birtday events.
You can see some of her art also on Vita Theas flickr account and inworld at her gallery named “Vita’s camera“.

CK (Ceakay Ballyhoo) is in Second Life since 2008. CK is a SL photographer and watercolour artist. She has done several exhibitons and installations, alone as well as in collaboration with others.
In her skybox at La Maison d’Aneli Ceakay Ballyhoo features her pictures in a classic way along the 4 walls of the box. The pictures show landscapes, houses, and animals. They are all processed to make them look like watercoulour or like drawings and honestly it is hard to say if they are based on RL or SL pictures, yet I assume the base are SL pictures as CK is a SL photographer.

CK (Ceakay Ballyhoo) runs a store with her art on the marketplace named CKB Art, she has a flickr account, an own blog and she has an own gallery with an access to a beach – CK’s Corner.

Isabel Hermano is in Second Life since 2006 and describes herself as painter, digital artist, dancer and creator. She has been fascinated by painting and photography since her childhood. When the digital era started, her passion for working with a PC was growing at the same time. So it was just natural for her to discover her love for editing pics. She leaned by doing, trial and error and by a couple of tutorials. For her “the border between painting and photography is as fluent as between magic and reality”. You can see more of Isabel hermano’s art at her Isa’s Gallery.
She writes in the accompanying notecard “A three years stay in Chile gifted new stimuli and inspiration. I started to see my world with different eyes – the eyes of a painter and photographer“

Isabel Hermano’s skybox at La Maison d’Aneli is about Chile. The exhibition is named “An approach to Chile”.
“An old Chilean myth tells us about the origin of this fascinating country: At the 7th day, when God looked at the world he had created, he found some leftovers like volcanos, glaciers, deserts, jungles, fjords and lakes. So he ordered his angels to throw them altogether beind some huge mountains, later known as the Andes…
Chile with its 4300 km of coastline is gifted with a breathtaking nature, almost all kinds of climate zones, belongs to the safest and richest countries of South America and produces excellent wines. But the true treasure of this country lies in its people and their open bearted kindness and hospitality.
I had the privilege of living there for three years and I fell instantly and deeply in love with Chile! My stay presented me with a whole bunch of inspirations and I’m forever thankful for it.”


Isabel hermano shows 8 displays dedicated to Santigo de Chile, Pablo Neruda, culinaria, Patagonia, Atacama, El Mar, Valpariso and Naturaleza. At each of these 8 display boards you find windows with Isabel’s art – digital art and photographs. It is like a little journey to this beautiful country!

Guille (Antoronta) is in Second life since April 2020. He writes in the accompanying notecard:
“Guille (Antoronta) in SL, is the nickname of Antonio Guillén in RL, he is a doctor in Biology and professor of Natural Sciences in Spain where he works as a professor and as an altruistic independent researcher in different projects related to microbiology, the environment or the astrobiology. For a long time he has claimed to consider knowledge as a whole in which art and science interact, erasing their borders and forming part of the essence of the universe that surrounds us. His gaze focused on the microscopic world opens the doors to beauty on other scales that we do not usually access, and to the very nature of life.”
Guille has won several prizes for her scientific photography and for his educational work. His flickr Water Project gallery is one of the main references to know the beauty and life of microscopic organisms.
In Second Life and together with Kimika Ying he has created a sim to publish the life of all these fascinating beings named “El Universo en una Gota de Agua” (The universe in a drop of water).

At La Maison d’Aneli Guille (Antoronta) exhibited a variety of his pictures that show these microscopic organisms, one more beautiful then the other, all very colourful. Nature is a real treasure! And I can only agree – the art and the science interact and the borders between them can blurr. A nice journey into another world.

Juna (junanuj), “former alter of Tani Thor, after a period of about 3 years in which she dedicated herself to role playing, has as main activity in SL since 2017, that of creating tattoos with the “Juna Artistic Tattoo” brand and from January in 2022 she becomes the sole owner of eBento – The Event -, a fashion event in SL.
Music is also an important element in her virtual life, in fact her affective union with Niovali Serrao led her to also take care of organizing DJ Nio’s musical evenings.”

Juna (junanuj) has a particular passion for landscape photography, and in 2021 Juna returned to taking pictures for purely personal enjoyment: “my approach to SL photography is as instinctual as all the things I do….uno, two shots at most, to try to capture that elusive emotion. My shots are worked with Photoshop, but trying to never distort the essence of the photo itself …“

In Juna’s skybox at La Maison d’Aneli the pictures are arranged like under a dome. Due to the shape of a dome no picture is rectangular and you have to adjust your camera to see them without distortion. Many pictures have coloured lines or beams. What is irritating at the first glance makes them intriguing on the second glance.

Besides the tattoo store (inworld and on the marketplace) Juna has a flickr page, a blog and owns the eBENTO event.

Mouse (dekabristmouse) is a Russian art student who likes furry, space and fallout themes. Mouse is in Second Life since 2001. He runs a shop for space, ground and water vehicles and for furry mods – Dekabrist’s main shop and home. At his skybox at La Maison d’Aneli he displays 31 pictures, named Day1 to Day 31, all realized in Oktober 2021. Each drawing shows a Furry, a mouse or another fantasy being and is named accordingling – or shows a partiuclar situation and the situation give the name for the drawing. All characters are  created by himself.

Tarozaemon Rossini is in Second Life since 2007. He categorizes himself as an alien from outerspace, who landed in Second Life to do research about mankind. “In reality it seems that his main mission is to show off here and there his trademark dreadlocks. Occasionally, when he has time to kill, he improvised himself as an artist and architect.” And he’s not that bad in pretending to be an artist and architect. Tarozaemon Rossini’s faible for fractals can be seen in his skybox at La Maison d’Aneli.

Fractal art is usually created with the assistance of a computer. Right where you enter his skybox there’s a slide show in which Taro explains the basics of fractals from the scratch, from a simple line, to a complex fractal based on iteration of formulas which combine real and imaginary numbers. He furtheron lays out the different types of fractals. Knowing what’s behind the exhibited fractals they become even more fascinating.

I personally am a fan of fractal art and in Second Life are quite some artists with a passion for this kind of art. Tarozaemon Rossini pretends also to be an architect. Hence he built something particular to showcase his fractal art. Most of the pictures are levitating and rotate permanently . In the center of his skybox is a huge 3D object, a flower (also fractal art?) and there’s an extra floor, from which you can firstly see the blossom of the flower and secondly can have a clower look at some non rotating fractals at the walls of his skybox.
You can see more of Taro’s fractal art at his flickr page.

La Maison d’Aneli is owned by Aneli Abeyante. Through her gallery she brings together all forms of creativity in RL and SL and the featured artists come from around the globe. Aneli’s intention is to “put her gallery in the service of artists, so that the world can be better, exchanges and meetings probably contribute even though it seems to be particles.”
Thank you for another great joined exhibtion, Aneli. As always I enjoyed my visit and writing about it. It inspired me.

Landmark to La Maison d’Aneli
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Holland/23/59/22
Vita Theas flickr page
https://www.flickr.com/photos/153849716@N05/albums
Vita Theas gallery “Vita’s camera”
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Danpoon/52/247/489
CK (Ceakay Ballyhoo) store CKB Art
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/112782
CK (Ceakay Ballyhoo)’s flickr page
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ceakayballyhoo/
CK (Ceakay Ballyhoo)’s blog
https://ceakayballyhoo.wordpress.com/
CK (Ceakay Ballyhoo) gallery and relax place CK’s Corner
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sunstream/214/26/45
Isabel Hermano’s Gallery Isa’s Gallery
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/FairChang%20Ria/157/165/2506
Guille (Antoronta)’s flickr page
https://www.flickr.com/photos/microagua/
Guille (Antoronta) “El Universo en una Gota de Agua” (The universe in a drop of water)
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Reykjanes/133/35/29
Juna (junanuj)’s Artistic Tattoo Main store
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Svanberg/75/118/1347
Juna (junanuj)’s Artistic Tattoo on the marketplace
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/187832
Juna (junanuj)’s eBENTO – The Event https://ebentotheevent.wixsite.com/ebento
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/EBENTO/127/17/22
Juna (junanuj)’s flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jjunanujj/
Juna (junanuj)’s blog
https://junaartistictatoo.blogspot.com/
Dekabristmouse’s main shop and home
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Harbinger/98/111/22
Tarozaemon Rossini’s flickr page
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tarozaemon/

Art in Second Life 2021 (48) La Maison d’Aneli June 2021

27 May 2021 Leave a comment

by diomitamaurer in Art in Second Life Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

On Wednesday, May 26th, a new joined exhibition opened at La Maison d’Aneli. It features the art of Adwehe, DAK Amat, Eylinea, Fly Kugin (flyqueeen), NewFantasy, Senka Beck and Vita Theas. I came across some of the artists before, others were new for me.

NewFantasy paints colourful abstract pictures in in various formats using acryl, ink and markers. She joined SL in 2014, inspired by her friend who she met in Second Life and who insisted that she exhibits in SL. In her skybox at La Maison d’Aneli she showcases about 10 pictures, sorted by theme. You can easily imagine what an eye catcher these picture are in RL.

Vita Thea’s skybox at La Maison d’Aneli showcases many pictures in a broad variety from portraits in black and white to colourful pictures of landscapes, from atmospheric black and white scenes to surreal scenes, from more fantasy pictures to erotic art. Vita can’t be defined by one style.
Vita is in Second life since 2007, she has varied experiences as a maker of clothes and a builder within Second Life. And she spends much time taking pictures for her creations and art projects. Vita has a flickr account as well as an own little gallery “Vita’s camera“.

Senka Beck is another SL veteran with far over 14 years. She sees SL as her playground where she enjoys interacting with peeps and prims, where she captures and releases her inner being.
The work presented at La Maison d’Aneli is titled Alexithtymia. Alexithtymia is the absence of feelings. “The signals are fuzzed the world is black and gray, dimmed. And I sit with it.” When I visited Senka was still setting up her installation and was sitting admist of it. You can grab a seat and sit yourself. Don’t forget to turn sound on: “Every dark has its light – but about that some other time.” There’s also a teleporter that brings you to a second floor.

Dak Amat’s installation at La Maison d’Aneli is a big house of cards, several stories high. Each card is a picture, and there are many of them! The themes vary over the floors. While the motifs on the first floor are very colourful, mostly comic-like drawings, you find portraits (also more like in a comic strip) on the 2nd floor and more serious drawings of mostly older people on the 3rd floor. On the top of the house of cards is an ampule of BioNTech’s Covid 19 vaccine and a speech bubble “Covid Demission”. In the center of it all is a spinning silver spiral. Inside is a teleporter that you can use to to switch between the different floors. The spinning spiral adds some nice effects, in particular when you stand inside of it. The installation is best discovered flying as there is so much to discover!
I couldn’t find out much about Dak Amat. Dak is in SL for more than 14 years and has an own artist studio together with Sof Yify called “Dekape Virtual Land“.

Eylinea is with 3 years still comparably new to Second life. I saw her art before at La Maison d’Aneli and at VeGeTaL PLaNeT Gallery. She’s exploring the possibilities and trying out new things. Her room in the current exhibtion at La Maison d’Aneli is dominated by a central 3D object that spins and changes permanently. It’s quite intriguing to watch it. The walls are covered with pictures of a ballet dancer.
Eylinea writes about herself in the accompanying notecard: “Photographer, cube juggler, light dresser, tattoo artist apprentice, designer, designer of cardboard furniture and lights, jewellery maker…. dreamer at her own time! To sum it up: creator of lots of things, curious about everything. That’s how I could qualify my sl… and my rl!”
If you want to see more of her look up her flickr page.

Adwehe is also quite new to Second Life, just 2,5 years. And like Eylinea, I saw her art before at La Maison d’Aneli and at VeGeTaL PLaNeT Gallery.
Adwehe writes about her current skybox: “I have always fantasized really walking inside my drawings, like in a dream. SL is the perfect platform to realize this dream. In this work i explore an ever changing drawing using lines, light and darkness, and many shades. Creating depth and perspective expanding the dimensions of the exposition room. There are very little colors but some appear dependent on the random choices the script makes. I used textures made up of small parts of charcoal drawings. The charcoal gives a certain warmth against the harder lines. Depending on your viewpoint and the presented state of the room many drawings can appear. You might have to walk/cam around and wait a bit because of the random nature of this. Thoughts about the meaning of this work spin in my head around the topics of information overload and emergence of information actually creating reality itself.”
In Adwehe’s skybox walls, the floors and the objects are constantly changing. Yet you can also influence how they change by walking over pads spread over the floor. But you shouldn’t expect that you can reproduce any setting. One ot the facinating issues with virtual art is that it is temporary, nothing remains. The installation extends over 4 levels, huge poles reach from the ground to the top floor. You can travel between the floors with teleporters. The main installation is nonetheless on the ground floor. But the view from the higher levels down to the the lower levels is intriguing, in particular when other people change the setting by walking over the pads or clicking them.
Adwehe has a flickr page and a gallery at VeGeTaL PLaNeT.

Fly Kugin (flyqueeen), as a live violin performer, is streaming into Second Life from Istanbul, since September 2019. She’s performing improvisation, Jazz & Rock genres, musicals & soundtracls from different time periods from various artists. But Fly also likes to spend her time taking pictures of landscapes and playing with them on photoshop. She is still learning different techniques. Fly started sketch drawing in March 2021. She acquired this passion in RL and it allows her to escape from the stress of everday life and main profession, music.
In her skybox at La Maison d’Aneli Fly showcases 9 pictures arranged in a half circle admist a forest glade. Each picture is placed on a seperate easel. The setting is romantic, with the stars and glowing particles it has a touch of peace and of fantasy. Fly named her exhibition “Mirrors of the earth” and added her thoughts about it written in the background of her pictures: “The earth is our home, our heart is as much as the earth. The only island we have in the ocean of stars. Get rid of hate fron your heart. Because the earth is a place to live in peace”
Fly has an own website with more information and a flickr account.

La Maison d’Aneli is owned by Aneli Abeyante. Through her gallery she brings together all forms of creativity in RL and SL and the featured artists come from around the globe. Aneli’s intention is to “put her gallery in the service of artists, so that the world can be better, exchanges and meetings probably contribute even though it seems to be particles.”
Thank you for another great joined exhibtion, Aneli. As always I enjoyed my visit and writing about it. It always inspires me.

Landmark to La Maison d’Aneli
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Holland/23/59/22
Vita Thea’s flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/153849716@N05/albums
Vita Thea’s gallery “Vita’s camera”
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Danpoon/52/247/489
Dekape Virtual Land – Artist Studio of Dak Amat and Sof Yifu
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Fort%20Stygian/232/124/615
Eylinea’s flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/189037651@N07/
Adwehe’s flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/187796045@N03
Adwehe’s gallery
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Oreo/64/96/501
Fly Kugin (flyqueeen)’s website
https://www.flyofficial.org/
Fly Kugin (flyqueeen)’s flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/134260978@N05/

Art in Second Life 2021 (2) Nils Urqhart – A Winter Tale 2020

05 Jan 2021 Leave a comment

by diomitamaurer in Art in Second Life Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I got an invitation from Nils Urqhart to see his newest exhibition “A Winter Tale 2020” at his own gallery, the Art Gallery Rill’Arts. It is Nils Urqharts 100th (!) exhibtion in Second Life since 2010.

“A Winter Tale 2020” by Nils Urqhart at Art Gallery Rill’Arts (1)

I came across Nils just a few weeks ago at La Maison d’Aneli joined exhibtion of December (read here). The Art Gallery Rill’Arts is a 3 story gallery in a classic building. Outside of the building is an ice rink and a Christmas market with quite some stands. At the stands you find examples of the artwork of 16 other artists that are active in Second Life, quite some of them have been covered in this blog already, namely: Abby Fairlady (Abby Burner), Adwehe, Arty, Bonach Ireton, Duna Gant, Hana Hoobinoo (CybeleMoon), Klaus Bereznyak, Mareea Farrasco, Marylin Breen, Natas Janus, Nils Urqhart, PrettyMiracle, Sisi Biedermann, viktorsavior, Vita Theas and Xirana Oximoxi. Some of the stands offer also gifts.

The Christmas Market next to Art Gallery Rill’Arts

“A Winter Tale 2020” is an exhibition with 50 Real Life pictures taken in the French mountains. They have never been showcased in Second Life so far. The ground floor of Art Gallery Rill’Arts is dedicated to pictures of forests and becks in Winter. The 2nd and 3rd floor are dedicated to pictures taken in higher Mountain areas. Some of them reminded me of the views I get when I drive ski in the alpes (well not this season though for known reasons).

“A Winter Tale 2020” by Nils Urqhart at Art Gallery Rill’Arts (2)

Nils Urqhart (Paul Maurice in RL) is a French landscape photographer in RL. He takes his photos mainly in French Alps and other French mountains (Vosges, Jura, Bugey, Aubrac…). And even if I didn’t come across him so far yet, he has a lot of exhibitions in different SL galleries every year. Nils is in SL since December 2007. Since 2010, his photos have been on display year-round at Art gallery Rill’Arts. Nils (or Paul in RL) has an own website where you can purchase his pictures to decorate you RL home.

“A Winter Tale 2020” by Nils Urqhart at Art Gallery Rill’Arts (3)

Nils was present during my visit on December 21st, 2020. He told me that the exhibition shall stay open to the public until March 2021. But the Christmas market will close on January 10th, hence you have to hurry to see it.
Thank you for your art, Nils. I enjoyed my visit.

Landmark to Art Gallery Rill’Arts
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Helvellyn/58/206/31
Nils Urqhart (Paul Maurice in RL)’s website
https://paul-maurice.pixels.com/

Simploring 2017 (61) Serena Imagine Arts Center

04 Aug 2017 2 Comments

by diomitamaurer in Exploring sims in Second Life Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

For simploring Saturday, July 29th, I followed Inara Pey’s blog post “Picture of Oh in Second Life“. Bryn Oh is a well know artist in Second Life and has had already some very catching installations. I have visited some of them myself, for example Immersiva (read here). The exhibition Picture of Oh is in a skybox at Serena Imagine Arts Center and it is worth a visit. For a description you better read Inara Pey’s post – it is very detailed and I can’t add anything to it.

I never heard about Serena Imagine Arts Center before, so I had a look what else is there. The Arts Center is embedded in Wolves Land, a nice homestead sim that offers some places to dance, to relax or to wind down, just as it is described “Come, relax, have fun and meet friends in this wonderful wolf-friendly land. You will be welcome. Why not dance or just chill under a tree?“. Right now it hosts not just the exhibition “Picture of Oh” but also the exhibition “Talking Walls” by Lalie Sorbet and an exhibtion with pictures of Lin Carlucci, both artists in RL. Their paintings are shown open air in a park, another and different way to show paintings and some of them melt perfectly with the environment while others add strong colours to it.

Serena Imagine Arts Center is owned by Vita Theas, who owns the sim and has her clothes store “Just imagine” right next to the art center. Thus the sim has 3 functions: a peaceful retreat, a store and an art center. “Ciao, Wolves Land is opened for all to visit and my hope is that you’ll love it. There’s my store Just Imagine and the Arts Centre I’m taking care of since 2009. If you are an artist feel free to call me.”

I think that’s a really nice way to combine business, art and the beauty of Second Life. Thank you Vita for the idea and the support of arts!

Landmark to Serena Imagine Arts Center
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Serena%20Imagine/155/118/21
Landmark to the exhibition “Picture of Oh”
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Serena%20Imagine/39/87/2002
Inara Pey’s blog post “Picture of Oh in Second Life”
https://modemworld.me/2017/07/27/picture-of-oh-in-second-life/