Real/Second Life Crossover- Treeline Opening

The real world Treeline opened officially on Friday night at Noosa Regional Gallery in Queensland, Australia. The Treeline exhibitions will take place at various venues and all Sunshine Coast Galleries over the next few months.

Virtual Treeline is part of the Noosa Gallery show. A slide presentation documents the involvement of the project in Second Life and shows the work of all the artists who participated and showed work at the Treeline galleries in Second Life. A second slide show shows the virtual environmental artworks of Juanita Deharo.

There will also be several live presentations from Second Life to an audiences in the gallery.

Two books which have been published as part of the Virtual Treeline project, and are being shown at the gallery as part of the exhibition. The first is a pictorial essay documenting and making comment on the work of each of the Second Life artists who participated in the Treeline exhibitions, and smaller book shows the virtual environmental artworks of Juanita Deharo, with an accompanying essay. These books are available to be read or purchased on line at http://bit.ly/9ZluS9 or via http://www.juanitadeharo.com/Virtual_Treeline_artists.html
There are more images of the opening on the Virtual Treeline Flickr site.
Thank you to everyone who has supported this project, both in Second Life and in my own community. There has been tremendous interest and expressions of delight from visitors to the Noosa Gallery since the show opened.

Treeline V- Scottius Polke

For our last show at Treeline, everyone's favourite otter, Scottius Polke, has kindly and very carefully transplanted some of the trees and plants form his magnificent Lunamaruna build (at Project Z) to our Sky Gallery platform. It was done with care, and they seem to love the watery environment here as much as in Lunamaruna.
Scottius' trees, as with the work of many of our exhibitors in previous shows, reminds us that virtual worlds can have their own ecosystems, and their own plant species. Not everything needs to be a replica of the real world. Sometimes, in making and seeing new and never before seen environments we are better able to understand and appreciate reality.
Something in us responds to the notion of a tree, whether it is one of Jadyn's magnificent redwoods, or one of Scottius' strange but evocative virtual trese that survived its first transplanting, but can not exist in the real world.

Treeline V - Fuschia Nighfire, Jadyn Firehawk and Araminta Kroitschov

For our last show at Treeline we have welcomed back some of the artists from previous exhibitions.
Since exhibiting at Treeline in our first show Fuschia Nightfire (Nina Camplin) has gone on to develop her work in Second Life in a number of directions. We are pleased to be showing her small immersive installation that was a prize winner at UWA, and some of her evocative 3D work incorporating figures and trees.


Jadyn Firehawk was also part of an earlier Treeline show. For this exhibition she has treated us to a taste of majesty with her images of giant redwoods. These giant trees, some of the largest on earth, are a living reminder of how insignificant we are in the scheme of things, and yet how much impact we have had on the planet. For anyone who has not seen these giant trees, Jadyn's images perfectly capture the feeling of awe one gets looking at such a huge and very old living things.


We are also pleased to welcome back photographer Araminta Kroitschov, who is continuing to do wonderful things, taking photographic works off the wall and into installations. Her experiments with the possibilities of the virtual environment show just what can be done when creative people think of ways to bring together real life art practice and the tools of Second Life.


Araminta has also charmed us once again with her images that speak of the joys of human contact with organic things and our own close ties with the natural world. We all respond positively to the idea of bare feet on leaves, but it's a sensation many of us rarely experience these days.

Treeline V - Marcus Inkpen

J. Matthew Root is the real life name of Marcus Inkpen. In the real world he is a fantasy/surreal artist, illustrator and web/graphics designer and when he's got some free time he writes cerebral science fiction stories, composes and records his own music and occasionally acts (and dies) in horror movies.He graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1999 having studied under mentors Susan Waters-Eller and Julian Allen with a concentration on illustrative painting.
After working in the newspaper/magazine industry for nearly a decade he decided to go freelance and hasn't looked back.
He's a seriously talented Second Life creator and a really nice guy, and we are delighted to feature his work 'The Great Tree' at ground level for our last exhibition.

Marcus says:
I've always been in love with trees and I've not been alone. Historically so much of our architecture is actually faint echos of humanity's love and admiration for the ultimate symbol of life, the tree.
When Sharni and I were building items inspired by the movie Avatar the vision of the great tree in which the Na-Vi live was the top of my list. You couldn't hope to more powerfully embody the idea of embracing life than to be living in a tree. Add to that the obvious life reference in the double helix staircases (which work as perfect metaphors on practically every level) and you have all that the "Tree" truely is. As balanced in its ever renewing lifecycle as we humans could ever hope to be.

Inside Marcus's Great Tree one climbs the double helix stairway to platforms hidden here and there amongst the foliage of the tree. It's an inspiring and rewarding experience, and is as close to be part of a living thing as one can get in a virtual world.
Marcus and Sharni Azalee have also 'decorated' our ground level around the giant tree with some of their plants and objects, all of them closely aligned with nature. Thanks to you both for making the ground level such a brilliant space.

Treeline V - Sharni Azalee

I first saw Sharni's work when she entered the UWA Art Challenge, and was immediately impressed with the quality of her texturing and attention to detail. Her work 'Forest of Dreams' which is a feature piece in this last exhibition at Treeline in Second Life represents to Sharni a space where she escapes, to create and forget the troubles of the world. She says she has always been immersed in creativity, with a mother who was an artist and many exceptionally talented friends, however it was not until she found Second Life that she found a medium that allows her to express my feelings and thoughts.
'Forest of Dreams' has an almost luminous, stained glass quality to the textures, whilst at the same time being reminiscent of textile. That doesn't seem quite possible, but it is.
Sharni is from Western Australia and the piece is influenced by native plants such as the boab tree, callistemon, and pincushion hakea, all very distinctly Australian plants.
Sharni's wish is that you may you find love and peace in your own Forest of Dreams