ART Gallery Online – Stay Connected,

Virtual Collection and online Exhibition featuring 37 artists. Curator: Lois Emma Harkin

When Lois Emma Harkin decided to put together her virtual exhibition. ‘Stay Connected’ she sought to bring together a diverse range of artists work that would otherwise be unseen during the Covid Pandemic. In the event she choose 37 artists and then constructed an ideal virtual gallery on Wixsite to house her curated collection. The gallery is a tour de force as its pristine silent spaces powerfully display her shows collection.

The virtual world gallery response to real spaces being shut during lockdown has brought to prominence the opportunity for artists and curators to bypass the current gallery and public art support framework, attracting new curators and artists unconstrained by the orthodoxy , costs and barriers to entry of existing real world venues.

The attractiveness of Virtual Galleries that show ‘weightless’ art is that the costs of transporting and installing art are non existent so distance and location become irrelevant as the venue is anywhere and everywhere in virtual space. What’s more the whole collection can be shown on a TV screen to add to dramatic effect and choice of art work display.

Currently many artists are starting to think about putting their work on digital platforms that use blockchain and authenticate the work. This is the new world that mirrors digital currencies like bit coin and etherium.

For those wanting to know more about how to do this I have included the link on a beginners manual.
https://opensea.io/blog/digital-art/the-beginners-guide-to-creating-selling-digital-art-nfts/

Going forward the role of personally chosen curated collections begs the question can the collection be sold digitally in it’s entirety to those that prefer a changing presence onscreen – currently it’s free to view at:

https://loisemmaharkin.wixsite.com/stayconnectedve3

Flux. Sue Nicholas

During lockdown I constantly felt stuck, neither going forward nor backward but with an underlying feeling everything was changing. A state of Flux.

Rainbow Cloud. John Walmsley

The National portrait gallery features the collections of John Walmesley photos from sixties demos featuring Vanessa Redgrave and Darcus Howe to the Britannia Coconut dancers. This Rainbow Cloud is an optimistic signal of Hope of an end to the pandemic.

Lapis Dream.
Louisa Pankhurst Johnson.

A meditation on cosmically co-creating and dreaming the future in lapis lazuli and gold.

The Future of Life.
Sonia Ben Achoura

technology and biology collide in this painting, the fourth in a series of five. Monochromatic overtones of the impact of technology versus a somewhat restricted colour pallet of representing biology.

2020 Vision. Andy Hornett

Automatic drawing offsets the implicit monotony and repetition with energetic placement of images which are again repeated on boards sequentially.. In the gallery these are placed against plinths on the floor and have a surprising presence.

US (Unwholesome Shelter). Jiang Fen.

A series articulating and questioning the cultural and human complexities of migration hoping for the dream of a better life sheltered under the US flag.

The Lady in the Swing. Jules Gabs.

The process of making this painting was to start with a digital painting, print it to a physical media, then add multi paint techniques before rephotographing it to a digital format to recreate an Instagram effect for this reinterpretation of Fragonard.