Art Breaker – Artist Biographies

‘Art Breaker’ features the work of some of the best artists in any virtual world. We are privileged to have them work in partnership with us at POP ART LAB and look forward to future, shared creative opportunities.
If you want to know more about the participating artists, you can discover more from their biographies below.

Bryn Oh- Bryn’s interest in Second Life began with an attempt to create a virtual artist with no reference to a RL identity. The idea was to establish whether a pixel character could become popular and accepted as an artist in RL amongst the flesh and blood crowd. Bryn views what we do here as a new medium with the capability to create unique forms of art. Bryn began studying Psychology in University, and then became an associate of the Ontario College of Art and Design after studying in both Toronto and Florence, Italy. After that she continued with a degree in Softimage computer animation and Zbrush. Bryn makes her living as a professional oil painter. Her virtual work has been shown in a variety of venues ranging from Boston, Brooklyn and Amsterdam in RL to working with companies such as IBM and the Spanish government for the Worlds Expo Shanghai 2010. Publications vary from IBM to Art21, scholarly essays to blogs. (http://brynoh.blogspot.com/)

Sunn Thunders- Sunn is a digital artist, educator, and has been a Second Life resident since June 2006. His work mainly focuses on kinetic sculptures that emphasize cyclic motion, patterns, colors, and even sound. These sculptures are designed to engage the viewer in thoughtful contemplation. Sunn also takes pleasure in dabbling with shapes and forms that reflect the spirit and culture of the south-western United States. In addition to sculpture he enjoys creating digital imagery, which includes Second Life landscape photography, original abstract illustrations, and fractals. Sunn is also interested in images that capture and evoke rich colors and textures. His digital tools of choice include Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Blender, and Apophysis, all of which he continues to explore and learn. Second Life has unlocked Sunn’s creativity and launched him along a pathway of artistic discovery. He is grateful for the opportunity to share his artwork with others and appreciates the interest it creates. When not engaging in virtual realms, he enjoys losing himself in a good book or in his garden. Examples of his artistic adventures are on display at his gallery, across the metaverse, and on the internet.

Abstract Baroque- Abstract Baroque is a UK based sculptor who might be most known for his gorgeous light particle shows which take the grid by storm. Lately along with Merlino Mayo he took home the $L20,000 prizes for winning the inaugural Scien@Art Physics 2010 Competition (at University of Western Australia (UWA) campus in SL) which was designed to challenge Second Life residents to create 3D art objects incorporating Physics principles across a number of categories, Atom, String Theory, Nanotechnology, Big Bang, Electricity and Atom. Abstract is also a noted painter in his real life with an interest in eastern religion and spiritual thought.

Misprint Thursday- Misprint is an artist in both worlds, in any world in fact! Her work manifests in many forms including interactive art, sound, music, machinima, sculpture, drawing, painting, photography and performance. Her main interests include emotive narratives, visual and behavioural patterns, visual conceptions of modes of communication, modern and historic iconography and relation to the natural and built environment. She enjoys creating on a daily basis and remains hopeful and open to the collaborative possibilities of the digital and the real. Her work has been noted on wired.com, PBS Art21 Blog, IndabaMusic, as well as by academics and art historians. Misprint has a background in fine art. In her installation for Art Breaker, Misprint uses an original music collaboration called ‘Covered Me in Colors’. The instrumentals and musical arrangement are by professional composer and musician, Ulf Skogsbergh. The original vocals and lyrics are by Misprint Thursday. Misprint and Ulf collaborate digitally on Indaba Music.

Miso Susanowa-Miso came to Second Life to see what had happened in the digiverse since 1995, when she began working in VRML virtual worlds. A musician/composer and artist in First Life, Miso’s SL sculptural work incorporates her experience with music and performance art production while attempting to continue her exploration of the burgeoning multiverse, its capabilities and potentials for transforming vision and creating new paradigms of relationship, behavior and identity. She is proud to be “old skool” in her identification as a netizen, a citizen of cyberspace. Her installation for Art Breaker, ‘code dreams’, is a dialogue addressing the digital/physical reality question; at one level it is both a still-life and a spacial soundscape with interactive and static elements (the Macrocosm), and on a closer examination made up only of bits and bytes, amino acids, pixels and light (the Microcosm). (http://gomiso.blogspot.com)

Binary Quandry- Binary Quandry is a Second Life artist. The work he does is primarily based on interaction or reaction to avatars. In Binary’s art, the avatar becomes an abstract reflection of the avatar. Every avatar in Second Life has a unique number (Universal Unique IDentifier), the avatar key or UUID, much like a finger print in the physical world. He uses the avatar key in such a way that each avatar becomes a part of the artwork. Artworks he has created include abstract images and sculptures and the use of sensors or collision detection. By your very presence, you are making the art unique.

Sabrinaa Nightfire- Sabrinaa has been an artist all her life. She’s from the eastern part of the United States and currently lives in Florida. She loves playing with intensely saturated colors, spatial relationships and new art forms. From the day she got her first computer in the 1980s, she started creating art with it. Her mother is an artist and her father worked in broadcasting and photography for over fifty years so she grew up with many forms of artistic expression at her disposal. As a child, she participated in many art programs for the artistically gifted. She also taught video production for twelve years. In 2001, she began creating art full time. In Second Life, she’s a sculptor, builder, clothes maker and photographer. She has an art sim, Erato of Caerleon which is part of the Caerleon Art group. She also maintains a large gallery called Evolution. Learning new things, defying the laws of real life physics, thinking outside the box and collaborating with others are activities she delights in doing and she is constantly adding to her repertoire of skills and tools. Sabrinaa has created thousands of textures using Photoshop, ArtRage, Print Shop, Sculpt Studio and Tatara in addition, she is a passionate collector of scripts and scripting technologies. During her tenure as a teacher at the SL based New Caerleon University, she has taught basic building and also participated in various in world festivals including ‘Imagine’ and was also responsible for organizing an exhibit for the Human Rights Festival in SL, special events and exhibits for the Caerleon group of artists including the One Prim Wonder show, the Masks! Show, the Future Project, the Imagine Create Texture Challenge, Steaming Hot! , The Imagine Create No Texture Challenge and fashion shows with other artist/designers. Recently, she was also awarded an honourable mention for her piece entitled Turbulence in the UWA Imagine Challenge for 3D art.

Sledge Roffo- Sledge is famed for creating prim sculptures and then making use of the Second Life camera to zoom into the sculptures to capture abstract images- no Photoshop used. In August 2008, he named this process ‘Primagery.’ Sledge doesn’t limit himself to SL photography but also creates scripted sculptures and immersive exhibits and regularly collaborates with his partner, Jewel MacMoragh, including the build at SL7B, entitled ‘Confetti Cannon’. In his first life, Sledge is a career Construction Project Manager who holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in Painting. His blog speaks of the evolution of his work and the art and artists that influence it. Since his first solo exhibition in December of 2008, he averages two art shows per month and has permanent and rotating exhibits in several places in Second Life. His work in Burning Life 2009 ‘The Cambrian Explosion’ was featured on the Linden Blog as part of the opening ceremonies. (http://www.makingartinsecondlife.blogspot.com/)