Amberly's Room by jeFF Lipsky
JeFF’s work is fascinating from both aesthetic and academic perspectives. My introduction to jeFF’s work was via Second Life, an online Virtual Community. His art collection was the subject of a critical review I wrote in my studies as a Graduate Student at Emerson College. The paper, “Filthy and Digital Art,” examined notions of “high and low art,” in the digital medium.
My attraction to JeFF’s work was never purely academic, however. I chose his work as my subject because it was visually stunning, intellectually stimulating, and fascinating in its social context. JeFF’s art has a very physical form of depth, as he works in layers to embed beauty and meaning in each piece. Sometimes the inspiration of the work is visually apparent, sometimes it is not. I’ve heard others say they like when they can visually connect what they’re seeing in his art with objects or locations they’ve seen in real life. I like when I look at his work and, instead of seeing ‘things,’ per se, I am moved to simply… connect. I can look at JeFF’s work and feel events, moments, memories, and life. I take in each of the layers separately and, at the same time, all at once. It is as though faith is bringing the seen and unseen together, creating a sensation of being swept through the canvas and into the emotion that inspired every color choice and every stroke of pastel that created the work. It is still and yet in motion, it is physical but significantly emotional. JeFF’s work is compelling, in every sense of the word.
His work, and it’s role in the social context of Second Life was also the inspiration for a paper I wrote at Emerson. The general thrust of the argument was that jeFF’s artwork in its original state (abstract pastel) carried connotations of “high art,” because the medium uses “fine art tools,” a canvas and pastels.
Interviewing Jeffrey Lipsky (photo credit, Colin Rhinesmith)
Under current social art norms, jeFF has chosen a perceived “low art” medium (the computer, the internet) as a source of inspiration for his work and as a means for exposure. The presentation of his art in a self-curated online gallery arguably changes the nature of his work. The debasing of fine art because of its existence in a digital form is a social notion that *must* be re-examined in the information age.
That paper inspired another project on how the nature Second Life builds community. JeFF has shown an active interest in the advancement of artists from around the world by coordinating Second Life workshops for artists to share their work and offer the kind of critique process that is often missed after an artist leaves the art school setting. The quality of jeFF’s art, what he is doing to help change notions of “high” and “low” art, and his emphasis on building community is a model for other artists and an inspiration to society on how to develop the potential of virtual worlds in all layers of cultural production and exchange.
