Timeless Grace Art is a new gallery located on Shoals dAlliez which opened early in September with three stunning exhibitions of virtual and physical world art.

Owned by MacKena Soothsayer, who co-curates the gallery with Yvan Slade, the gallery is located high above the region, occupying one of Aki Shichiroji’s marvellous mesh buildings, an industrial unit which offers a light, two-storey environment which has been simply but beautifully outfitted as a gallery space.

On the lower floor of the gallery is a striking exhibit of art by Uleria Caramel, entitled Oil vs Glass, and which feature her paintings from the physical world uploaded and presented within SL. All of the pieces on display reflect her focus on colour contrasts and abstract expressionism. Two of her mediums are working in oils and working on glass, and the display is a reflection of this, with pieces from the two mixed together throughout the ground floor of the gallery.

One of the issues in bringing real world paintings into SL is that where there is a reliance on something like texture, such as in an oil painting which uses rich, overlapping layers of colour, or which has been produced on a particularly rough canvas or cloth, the depth of the texture can be somewhat lost in the purely 2D image seen through SL. Several of the oil pieces in this exhibit are strong enough to overcome this; however – and without critique Uleria at all – I did find myself wondering how much stronger and more alive some of the pieces would be had normal maps perhaps been added to them to generate that sense of texture.

Which is not, as I say, to critique Uleria; the pieces on display here, whether representative of oil paintings or glass paintings, are quite captivating. So much so that when viewing them, I found myself wondering that were I seeing them in the physical world, might i in fact be wondering about price and wall space at home…

Upstairs, the gallery provides room for Photography by Kandece Weissbrod and Fractal Art by Aurora Mycano.

“As long as I can remember, I’ve loved photos; old photos that told stories of lives once lived, the power of different generations, happiness, sadness, peace and love,” Kandece states. “Just by holding them in your hands, it’s almost as if you can feel the aura. There’s something powerful about a story that can be told through emotions in photography.” This is certainly true of the elements of her work on display here.

Presenting a mix of physical and virtual work photography, Kandece offers the visitor a fabulous mix of images from the abstract to the seemingly simple, each one carrying a particular captivating quality, with many suggesting they have more than one story lying within them.

I found myself particularly drawn to three studies using light sources against a black background which occupy one corner of her exhibition space, while the placement of some of her physical world images opposite those taken within Second Life offer a series of striking contrasts as well as a subtle blending through the fact that within each of them, same eye for detail and story, the same passion for capturing emotion – be it through the image itself or from within the person viewing it – is clear.

Aurora Mycano focuses her talents primarily on digital, fractal, modern and abstract art. Fractal Art reflects her fascination with this particular medium, which started in 2012, and which has gained recognition in the art world – in spring 2013, she was the winner of the first JWildFire fractal art contest. JWildfire, by Andreas Maschke, is a popular fractal art generation programme, which Aurora uses alongside Apophysis and UltraFractal. A key aspect of her work is that the fractal art she produces is “raw” – there is no subsequent post-processing through PhotoShop or other editing applications.

The pieces on display here are a mix of colour and white fractals presented on black backgrounds. All are intricate and not a little mesmerizing in their beauty and execution; however I confess to being particularly drawn of the white-on-black studies, which put me in mind of intricate etchings in glass, and two of the colour items which show particularly strong Mandelbrot elements within them.

Aurora says of her work, “I am very passionate about my art and expressing myself with it. You will find a little part of my soul and heart in each of my pieces, as they all reflect a certain moment in my life, which inspired me to create it.”

This could also be said of all three exhibits on offer at Timeless Grace: each of them offers clear insight into the passion of the artists for their work; they are someone – to this observer at least – very personal in their presentation.

Altogether, a fabulous trio of opening exhibits which make a recommended visit. I look forward to seeing what else the team at Timeless Grace Art bring us in the future.

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