Art in Second Life 2021 (30) La Maison d’Aneli April 21

01 Apr 2021 Leave a comment

by diomitamaurer in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , ,

In April La Maison d’Aneli features two artists Xirana Oximoxi aka Nuria Vives and Violaine (Anadonne)

Violaine (anadonne) is in Second Life for 4 years now. Violaine is a RL photographer with many inspirations. She lists “human beings, films, shapes, trash, fashion, colours, black and white, minimalism, maximalism, commercials, graffiti and erotica – and many other things”. Her pictures at La Maison d’Aneli show this broad variety. The abstract pictures look like maps coloured in different tones of one colour. I other pictures you recognize parts of human bodies, other show people. Violaine’s pictures are displayed in groups of two or three pictures which belong together.
I saw Violaine (anadonne)’s art before at La Maisan d’Aneli, in November 2018 (read here) and in January 2020 (read here). The more I see of her art, the more familiar I get with her style and the more her pictures, in particluar those showing humans and part of humans, become intriguing.

Xirana Oximoxi aka Nuria Vives is a Catalan artist, children’s books writer and illustrator. She works with different mediums, oil, watercolor, acrylic, ink, charcoal and pastel. At La Maison d’Aneli she presents her exhibition “The secret of the Crystal Mountain”. The text and illustrations are from Nuria Vives, Aneli Abeyante and Nuria worked both an the setting into the 3D world of Second Life.

I would call “The secret of the Crystal Mountain” a walk-in children’s book. It tells the storry of a hippo family. You walk through several scenes (skyboxes) as you read and see the story. In the accompanying notecard the story is summarized in a few sentences along with direct landmarks to the scene. I recommend to just use the teleprots in the corner of each skybox (next scene).

“The secret of the Crystal Mountain” by Xirana Oximoxi and Aneli Abeyante (1)

Long ago, in a beautiful place in Africa, lived Isantim’s family. It was a family of hippos that spent all day inside the river to rest. It hadn’t rained for a long time and no one knew why. Isantim and his bravest children decided to organize an expedition to find out what was going on. They climbed the highest mountain in the country to talk to the clouds and ask them why it wasn’t raining.

They were about to reach the top when they realized they were walking on a layer of crystal and they saw that in the middle of the heart of the mountain, on a pedestal, was a golden metal cage. Inside there was a small bird. Little goblins that looked like fire surrounded him.

The hippos were going from surprise to surprise without understanding what was it all about. They saw a thin small cloud approaching. When he was closer, they took the opportunity to ask him thousands of questions. After discovering that the prisoner was the Rain Bird, the hippos set off to find an entry into the mountain.

The cave was like a labyrinth full of narrow tunnels. The hippos feared they would get lost in it and never being able to get out again. Luckily some bats that lived in the cave, after they heard that the hippos wanted to free the Bird, showed them the path that would lead them to the center of the mountain. But the bats warned them of the danger in which they will find themselves.

The hippos, who were not afraid, went on until they reached the entrance of the central gallery. Seeing them, the goblins, all at once, threw tongues of fire at them. The gallery looked like a flaming meteorite. Then, with the water they brought to cool off, the hippos all at once sprayed the goblins and left them well soaked and extinguished. Carefully, they took hold of the golden cage and came out of the mountain, guided by the bats.

“The secret of the Crystal Mountain” by Xirana Oximoxi and Aneli Abeyante (2)

After struggling a bit with the lock, they managed to open the door and to free the bird. He soared up in the sky making a cheerful whisper and a happy whistle. Soon they lost sight of him. After a while the hippos saw their cloud friend grow and swell like a cotton castle and then it started to rain.

It is not the first time that Xirana Oximoxi aka Nuria Vives is featured at La Maison d’Aneli. I saw her exhibtion “Women Artists XVI-XIX” there in February 2019 (see here) and her exhibtion “Lost Souls” in April 2020 (see here)
Xirana has her an own website and an own blog.

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/23/65/22
Xirana Oximoxi’s website
http://nuriavives.com/
Xirana Oximoxi’s blog
http://nuriavvives.wordpress.com/

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/

Art in Second Life 2020 (17) La Maison d’Aneli April 2020

09 Apr 2020 7 Comments

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

On Wednesday, April 8th, the April exhibtion at La Maison d’Aneli was opened to the public. This time it features the art of Agleo Runningbear, Eifachfilm Vacirca, Etamae, FionaFei, Tralala Loordes, Xirana Oximoxi and Kalyca McCallen. I peeked into the exhibtion already on Sunday, April 5th.

I started my visit with the room presenting the art of Etamae.
Etamae is from the UK and began transforming her pictures from  the things she has seen and loved in Second Life into something else, in digital art in 2018. I came across Etamae in 2019 when I visited her exhibtion “Dominance and Submission” at Elevate Femdom (see here). Today Etamae has also an own gallery to showcase her art, the Extempore Gallery and Lounge, another gallery I might visit soon. At La Maison d’Aneli Etamae works with animated pictures that change permanently either with fading in and out different perspectives of the same picture or with zooming in and out. Two of these pictures are on twisted surfaces thus increasing the animation effect. We see heads and bodies or broken bits of them, the walls are covered by webs of barb wire, faces watch us… you can let your mind wander in the complexity of thoughts and impressions.

La Maison d’Aneli – April 2020 – Etamae

Kalyca McCallen and Proton d-oo-b (Eifachfilm Vacirca) formed Alchemelic, a Zurich-based music and art project with cinematographic background, mixed media, and 3D modeling. Proton d-oo-b (Eifachfilm Vacirca) is from Switzerland and looks back on decades of experience in different media businesses. His music style ranges from traditional to experimental. Kalyca McCallen is a multi-media artist from California and loves experimenting with texture and color. They aspire to spark our imagination and elevate our mood with their unique blend of visual art and original music. Kalyca McCallen and Proton d-oo-b (Eifachfilm Vacirca)’s installation at La Maison d’Aneli is titeled “The Space Between”. In their room you see three large 3D heads on both long sides of their room leading you to a door that brings you to platform with the core installation. You enter the space … planets and stars around you between 2 even larger 3D heads, a strange world, a fantasy, science fiction in your mind. Imagine that with experimental music!
Unfortunately I had no music from Alcemelic during my visit though but I had a look at their youtube channel, where you find many long and short clips of their music and their 3D art. The provided notecard at La Maison d’Aneli provides much more information and many more links.

La Maison d’Aneli – April 2020 – Kalyca McCallen and Proton d-oo-b (Eifachfilm Vacirca)

April Louise Turner (Agleo Runningbear) is an artisan shaman with native American, Romanian, German and Irish roots (wow). She makes perfomances, poems and paintings. Her art is also featured at ArtCare Gallery, another place to be added on my list of places to visit. At La Maison d’Aneli we see portraits in different techniques, mainly pencil drawings. At the time of my visit, her room was not yet finished and the pictures weren’t yet aligned perfectly, but the pictures itself were already there and the longer you look at them, the more they impress.

La Maison d’Aneli – April 2020 – April Louise Turner (Agleo Runningbear)

Tralala Loordes is in Second Life since SL 2009 and devoted to everything post-apocalyptic. But she’s also tempted by LODE headpieces. To her “they’re so much like Renaissance flower paintings. Flowers also have stories, myths, lore”. I never heard about LODE headpieces nor did I find a definition. In her room at La Maision d’Aneli you can see them: fantasy portraits with huge headpieces made of flowers and other elements. The pictures are presented in a fantasy environment, each picture held by a hand, a few pigeons on the floor and flying around and 2 large trees at the entrance so that you enter a different world.

La Maison d’Aneli – April 2020 – Tralala Loordes

Xirana Oximoxi is a Catalan artist, children’s books writer and illustrator. She works with different mediums, oil, watercolor, acrylic, ink, charcoal and pastel. At La Maison d’Aneli she presents her exhibition “Lost Souls”, which is in some way related to the current situation in all of our real lifes: “During these days of confinement many of us have to reinvent ourselves a bit so we can have a better time locked up at home. Walking around the rooftop I noticed the irregular surface of the walls and they have become a source of inspiration. “Lost Souls” is the title of a series of images I discovered following a small crack or the configuration suggested by the little fragments of rock of the conglomerate. The technique is a mixed media of photography and digital retouch.” It is fun to look at these stone surfaces and to discover faces, it attracts your attention to look more intensively and to abstract. It is not the first time that she is featured at La Maison d’Aneli. I saw her exhibtion “Women Artists XVI-XIX” there in February 2019 (see here)
Xirana has her an own website and an own blog.

La Maison d’Aneli – April 2020 – Xirana Oximoxi

I came across FionaFei’s art already two times this year visiting her Shui Mo Gallery (see here) and visiting her installation Impostor (see here).
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.” For more information look up FionaFei’s own website.
At La Maison d’Aneli we see 6 2D paintings of Fiona arranged at the left and at the right side of her installation. The installation itself is a bit more colourful then what I saw from her so far, held in black, red and green. And again you can walk in and get a part of the installation – and walking in your get different perspectives. Another piece of art, another technique – and I like it.

La Maison d’Aneli – April 2020 – FionaFei

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/36/55/3501
Extempore Gallery and Lounge
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Blarn%20Isle/13/210/1502
Alchemelic YouTube’channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/doobeifachfilm/videos
ArtCare Gallery
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Prychek/229/105/431
Xirana Oximoxi’s website
http://nuriavives.com/
Xirana Oximoxi’s blog
http://nuriavvives.wordpress.com/
Landmark to FionaFei’s Shui Mo Gallery
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Dreams/147/44/2554
FionaFei’s Website:
https://fionafei.portfoliobox.net/

Simploring 2019 (12) 6 artists at La Maison d’Aneli

01 Feb 2019 5 Comments

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

I got the invitation to visit the newest exhibition at La Maison d’Aneli, that opened January 23rd and features the art of: Therese Carfagno, Eupalinos Ugajin, Nabrej Aabye, Betty Tureaud, Tubal Amiot and Xirana Oximoxi.

I started my visit at the room that was filled with Betty Tureaud art. It is one piece, four persons stand in a circle around a hoovering couple. The persons or statues are made of coloured glas, each has a different colour, the couple being pink. Around the scene 8 cubes are placed in a circle and on the inner side of the cubes you see the faces of other coloured persons looking at the scene in the center. The whole scene is in a full dark room and once you enter there’s no other light than what is reflected of the persons and the cubes. It’s quite impressing to walk around and to step into the scene. I’ll refrain from interpreting *winks*
Betty Tureaud is from Denmark, she’s a builder and light and space artist in Second Life. I came across her art before at ArtSpace UTSA in 2016 (read here) and in August 2018 when I visited her isntallation “The Art Game” (read here)

Xirana Oximoxi (Nuria Vives)’s exhibition at La Maison d’Aneli shows a series of nine women artists of 16th – 19th centuries centering the attention to the difficulties they had to deal with to be recognised as professional artists. Each of the female artists has her own little corner. Stylised men are looking at the exhibited pictures and are discussing, you see their comments like in a comic strip, the ceiling hanging full of other bubbles. To some extent the comments seem to be funny nowadys, but on the second glance they left me very pensively.
Xiarna Oximoxi (Nuria Vives) is a Catalan artist: “My works reflect my concerns and my different moods. They are based on my experiences and express a personal sensitivity nourished by impressions from the external world and my internal world.” Nuria her an own website http://nuriavives.com/ and an own blog http://nuriavvives.wordpress.com/

Nabrej Aabye is a digital artist. His work ranges from simple illustration, photography, video, design, digital painting, typography and to mixed art. At La Maison d’Aneli you’ll get an impression of the variety of his art, that is not dominated at all by one style. The two boule balls and the sci-fi skeleton of a dinosaur show examples of his 3D art.

Therese Carfagno is Second Life for 12 years now and took pictures within SL for many years. Lately she’s more interested in pictures of real life. In her exhibition at La Maison d’Aneli she shows a series of pictures of Nancy, “a very kind and beautiful girl who’s very at ease in front of the camera.” There’re also a few abstracts. You’ll have to interpret them yourself as even Therese can’t explain what it is – nor can I.


Tubal Amiot’s usual name is Aïcha according to something in her real name. Like Therese Carfagno she’s also in Second for almost 12 years now. She says about herself, that other people find her being eccentric. For her SL is a place to do what she doesn’t do in real life. She’s first of all a poet and writer. Tubal makes paintings with softwares, sometimes 3 for one painting. The work exhibited at La Maison d’Aneli reaches from naive art to adult art, from scuptures to comics, from abstract to garphical pictures. And it’s really colourful!

Eupalinos Ugajin is also in Second Life for more than 10 years. Inara Pey has visited Eupalinos Ugajin’s “Avaloir” and writes in her blogpost Eupalinos Ugajin’s Avaloir in Second Life: “Those familiar with Eupa’s work will know that it covers a broad canvas, often containing humour, whimsy, a little self-deprecation, which can be mixed with social commentary, imaginative projection worth of the likes of Gilliam, and an artistic flair that can quite captivate the eye and mind.”
The room created by Eupalinos Ugajin at La Maison d’Aneli show several 2D and 3D pieces of art and a quote on the floor that is faded in and out at different spots and that describes the combining element of the exhibited pieces:
“…we now have 3D and the apologists say it is more realer than real. Do we need that? Shouldn’t we be putting our energies into something more worthwhile? The human imagination is surely the most amazing thing in the universe. We do not want virtual reality we want virtual unreality. We cannot replicate reality – ahy are we asting our time trying?…” (Peter Greenaway)

Once again Aneli Abeyante has put together an impressive exhibtion showing the broad variety of art in Second Life at La Maison d’Aneli. I did enjoy my visit and can only recommend that you’ll have a look at it. Thank you Aneli and thank you Therese Carfagno, Eupalinos Ugajin, Nabrej Aabye, Betty Tureaud, Tubal Amiot and Xirana Oximoxi.

Landmark to La Maison d’Aneli
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Holland/43/41/21