Note: I recently wrote a new artist statement to be made available as a notecard to anyone interested in the origins of my work and the process by which they’re made; it was so good I thought I’d also share it with you here. (smiles)

The roots of these works are firmly planted in that period in the late 20th Century when the intellectual, philosophical and spiritual attitudes of Abstract Expressionism clashed for one brief, incendiary moment with the brash new (and openly commercial) sensibility of Pop Art. At that moment, the epic narrative of Ab-Ex was replaced with the elements of everyday life – the stuff of comics, television, magazines, etc. – and the previously “sacred” art object was taken unceremoniously from the temple and dragged out into the streets.

In the aftermath of that event, however, the art world lost its moorings and, alas, the center could not hold. Without the traditional hierarchical structure which held sway throughout most of art history, it would no longer be possible to determine the quality, value or meaning of a work of art. Western culture was lost in the wilderness of Postmodernism.

In my own work, I sidestepped this great debate by pursuing a blend of each of the earlier ideals in a separate world made possible by new media technology. I began to create works using tools which enabled me to stay just outside the artificial categories of the postmodern art world, and in these works I began to explore, sample, twist, bend and blend imagery from all times and places; all genres, all mediums and all cultures. In the mashup of these ingredients, I began to break free of the -isms of the past and simply follow my own instincts, wherever they may lead, and regardless of what they may leave behind.

The works before you are part of a series completed in that spirit during the period from 2000 to 2005, a time when I was sampling and mixing from many sources, clearly intermingling elements of high culture and pop culture – thus embodying that very fissure referenced above. Ever restless to explore new terrain, however, I entered the virtual world of Second Life in 2007, and am now up to my ears in the creation of works using SL imagery exclusively; works which will subsequently be translated into physical images and displayed in the “real” world. Art marches on.

If I had to attach a name to my work, though, I’d call it a “soul jam for the new millennium” (always wanted to paint the way Jimi Hendrix played the guitar); but no matter how you slice and dice it I’m an inveterate and unapologetic photoshoplifter, a kleptographer – or, if you prefer, a highly sophisticated scan artist, just trying my best to stay one step ahead of the law of gravity.

Above: Standing in front of my latest digital painting, entitled hello kitty, based on images of friend and model, Juliette, who has just begun to rock the metaverse.

Just received word from my good friend in Australia, Dr. Chris Thorne, that the members of our panel at this year’s SIGGRAPH conference in New Orleans will include Philip Rosedale, Founder and Chairman of Linden Lab; Doug Twilleager, Wonderland group, Sun Microsystems; Peter Schickel, Founder of Bitmanagement Software GmbH; Chris Thorne, and yours truly. Some of you may remember my post on last year’s conference, where I described to the audience the magic of my first year in Second Life, only to suddenly discover that not everyone on the panel wanted to hear what I had to say.

It seems the virtual world industry was heading in another direction at that moment, and the others on the panel, all CEOs of virtual worlds (including google Lively, ironically) were basically describing their efforts to find the holy grail: web-based virtual worlds. There.com, Twinity, Lively, etc., were all attempting to establish what would essentially become the first 3D facebook; they were dumbing down the software, lowering the bar in hopes of bringing in much larger numbers of subscribers; unwittingly, I was describing the opposite approach. I was emphasizing the beauty and wonder of the fully immersive experience of Second Life in emotional, aesthetic and experiential terms.

So, this year, the theme will be How do virtual worlds effect hearts and minds? and some of the heavy hitters that participated in the last one will not be there this year. Google Lively, for instance, will not be there for obvious reasons; but I can’t help wondering whether some of the others declined because the topic was such a sensitive one; one which many business leaders have not addressed directly in their pursuit of greater numbers, and therefore greater profits. Nothing wrong with making money, imho, but we are talking about the birth of a new paradigm here; one which, for better or for worse, will play an increasingly important role in our culture and bring about changes we cannot yet imagine. Seems to me we oughta be talking about these things now, in hopes of getting at least some of them right.

It should be an interesting event, though; not just because I will be there (jk), but because a few avatars will also be there: the meeting will be videocast live into Second Life, and SL attendees will be projected onto a wall throughout the presentation. The event will last two hours; the first hour for the speakers, the second for Q&A. Get those pencils sharpened, guys.

Photo above: Alice In Wonderland Dark Ride in Second Life,

http://slurl.com/secondlife/BlackPearlBeach/205/114/32/

A brand new painting from the factory called hello kitty, a digital mashup between Second Life avatar imagery and the look and feel of a faded fresco with a bit of rust and dust thrown in for good measure.  Delicious scenes of hell fire, and a bit of alchemist’s gold have also been spotted by some observers. As for me, I like the guitar player, love the playful connotations in the title, and the merging of baroque and pop in the same image. mmmm, yummmy.

Back in January I was one of six artists in an exhibition at the Austrian Embassy in Berlin, Germany, and in the publicity for the show I was referred to as the only American. Just for the record, though, that is not entirely accurate since I reside exclusively in Second Life. My physical counterpart, my animator, lives in California, though, which I believe is in America. Some day I’ll get around to doing a search for maps of the real world, just to be sure.

Though all of the artists in the exhibit were exceptional (that must include me, then?), one of them stood out from the rest – a painter from The Netherlands, a digital Dutch Master – Rob Steenhorst, aka Rob Barber. He’s a painter in the true sense of the word, though he no longer uses the liquid form… he says that he left all that behind in 2007.

He now exclusively works in digital media, using 2D and 3D software such as Poser and Photoshop to achieve his otherworldly effects. He often creates scenes which have the veneer of ordinary life, yet the very settings and the expressions and movements of the figures imply a very different narrative – a much more mysterious one; one which it is up to the viewer to ponder. They invoke somewhat disturbing questions whose answers can only be guessed at, much as in real life. Visually, the works have a clear relation with early genre pieces, staged photography, graphic novel and cinema screenshots.

In the image above, however, Rob has taken a different tack. In this case, he has actually recreated a scene from real life; a scene, in fact, that, had my animator not been confined to bed in his hotel room in Berlin that night, I might have been part of. It is a painting of an actual musical performance by Juliane Gabriele, aka Jaynine Scarborough, a friend and well-known cabaret singer, just a few nights before we returned to The States.

In discussing this painting with the artist recently, I asked him what this apparent departure from his earlier work might mean in terms of his future work. He explained that it actually held more similarities than might be apparent to the average viewer; that in each painting he always seeks “a balance between the individual person and what the figure itself represents..”, in art historical terms. As for his future work, he stated that he will continue to experiment with real life, and will attempt to achieve an effect which he described as “life as I experienced it.”

I have the sense that although this approach may have added a bit less mystery to his work, it has injected far more of a feeling of life; and to my mind this is a positive trade off. Rather than generating the look and feel of staged photography or cinema screenshots, this has much more of a sense that there are actual people in front of you; that there is real human emotion and energy being expressed.

I’m glad he did this one for another reason, though; I now have a fragment of a wonderful event that happened without me one night in Berlin, like a digital memory chip implanted in my brain.

Above: Muziekschool 12 05 2009, by Rob Steenhorst, pigmented ink on canvas.