Recently

"An art gallery was the very first thing I created in SL back in 2006," shared Max Butoh, well known as the owner of The Chamber, "and I always wanted to have one somewhere." That somewhere is now the sim Floris, home to The Chamber, and the gallery is dathúil — meaning, in Irish, colorful or beautiful. It's an old distillery, with great copper whiskey stills and barrels at the ready, and lots of room for artwork. And, given that it's a distillery, it's launching appropriately and in grand style with an exhibition — Recently — of new artworks by Whiskey Monday, none of which have been displayed before inworld. The show opens tomorrow, Sunday, March 1, at 9 am slt, with an opening reception at 4 pm slt.

Always personal, always fascinating, often humorous, and often disturbing, Whiskey's artworks are composed images that place her avatar in various situations, often fraught with struggle, and we can't help but sense her fragility or dilemma. "It's absolutely self therapy," she explained as we chatted about the show and her creations. The images are "a way of telling bits of my story, but kinda twice removed, so it's easier. I stopped sharing my writing, as it started to feel so strange — too intimate, and people 'knew' me, even when I didn't know them. And that became intimidating. But I still had this urge to tell my story, trite as that sounds, so the photos are another way to do that."

It was only years after Whiskey's arrival in Second Life that she began to experiment with photography — "not until I got a good computer, and started messing around with creating my tweets as photos. It was Botgirl Questi who inspired me. She has inspired me so much. Our constant talks about identity and creativity. She really pushed me to express myself in new ways." All of the works in the exhibition are for sale (with a couple of fun freebies at the entrance). Recently will remain on display through the month of March, and will then make way for dathúil's second exhibition, featuring works by Yannick Whoa (lottomann) for the month of April.