Officially opening at 13:00 SLT on Saturday, April 11th, at the Influence Art Community is a new exhibition of fractal art by Gem Preiz.

“I spend my time amazed with the extraordinary detailed patterns of the fractals, as well as their incredible diversity,” Gem says of his work. “From my explorations in this fascinating universe, I bring back digital images that I have been displaying on SL for two and a half years, using them to illustrate themes which inspire me.”

The result is a series of pictures which come together under the title Rhapsody in Blue Fractals, which Gem uses to form a narrative tracing the story of the universe through to humanity’s arrival and our attempts to fill it with our own creations.

The pieces – twenty in total – are displayed two and three at a time through a series of rooms hanging in space, a single blue walkway running between blue-framed doorways providing the means of progress from one room to another. The choice of blue is deliberate, as Gem notes, “blue as the water from which life arises, as the sky and the air we inhale.”

Each piece bears its own title, giving a clue to its place in the story: Genesis, emerGence, BioloGy, and so on – the capitalised G another link to the blue theme and the title of the piece; Rhapsody in Blue being George Gershwin’s famous 1924 musical composition for piano and jazz band. And it is also, as Gem notes, a play on the first initial of his name, and the person to whom the exhibition is dedicated.

The pieces themselves are also rendered in blue, and each one is intricately detailed and quite beautiful in depth; so much so that time is really required to study and appreciate each piece fully – and even then, it is possible to come back and pick out yet more details on a subsequent visit.. They also represent something of a retrospective of the various styles of fractal art he has produced over the last 30 or so months, something which adds a further layer to the exhibition as a whole.

I’m not sure if there will be a music stream running once the exhibit formally opens, however GEM suggests three YouTube tracks should be listened to when visiting the exhibition, and having wandered back and froth through it with them playing, I tend to agree with him:

Oh, and when you reach what appear to be the end of the blue path and are facing the last image – trust to fate and step off the edge; there’s a little surprise waiting, which is perhaps itself a commentary on the possible cyclical nature of the universe!