Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
PK’s could be called the power of looking away. So many of his pictures show him looking away from the camera, around corners, into the distance. Just one picture could be intriguing, but if you look at a page of him looking away as on his About Page, the effect is exponential. It makes me swoon, especially with his pop art sensibility, his fascination with the geometry created with light and shadow, his love of duotones that distill a screenshot to its essence. It is all just wonderful. .
For more from PK, click here:
Speaking of geometry…
This picture from just over a year ago is an example of the various elements of his style. He has created a duotone picture, brown and yellow rather than black and white, adding color which makes it poppier, so to speak. He’s looking away, but just in case, his face is blurred. The lines that frame him create an almost trompe l'oeil effect where the line behind his back almost looks like he is carrying it. It’s just a wonder.
Could looking away be more deliberate? His body faces us and his head is turned away in a way that almost feels belligerent. “You can’t make me look!” Again he uses a duotone to distill the picture to its essentials.
PK’s stream can be overwhelming in his devotion to a singular aesthetic. His work reminds me of the Paradox of Creative Freedom, sometimes called the Paradox of Constraints.. For example, say you’re in an art class and your teacher tells you to make something. What should you make? A bird, a plane, Superman? In clay, paint, or mosaic? There’s so many options, your creativity is inhibited. On the other hand, if your teacher tells you to paint (a constraint) a bird (a constraint) you already have somewhere to go and can let your imagination fly. There are infinite possibilities for PK to shoot pictures looking away in a monochromatic scene with strong light and shadows and when he comes to creating his work, he has two of the “what will I create today” questions already answered.
All images copyright PK
See all Cajsa's Choices here. Want to recommend an artist to feature? Tag Cajsa with your favorite pics on Flickr, on Primfeed, and Facebook. (Self-promotion welcome!)
Cajsa’s Choices is devoted to unique, artistic, and innovative virtual world-based images and screenshots that showcase the medium as an art form and Second Life as a creative platform. (Generally not images that fit on this Bingo card.)
Cajsa Lilliehook is a seventeen year resident of Second Life, where she owned a photo studio, spent several years as a DJ at The Velvet, and for her first SL job, cleaned up prim trash. She co-founded and runs the It’s Only Fashion blog with her best friend Gidge Uriza. She also has a book review blog, Tonstant Weader Reviews and a cooking blog, Single Serving Recipes. She spends a lot of time researching and reporting on Republican sexual predators. In her first life, she is a retired grassroots leader who has worked for economic and social justice issues most of her life. She is also the minion of a cat named Nora.
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