There are artists who specialize in a theme or style and seldomly leave it and this is the case of Chris Tower Dae, probably the best known Italian portrait photograph who uses Second Life and virtual worlds as a tool to carry outworks which resemble the photos of famous photographers like Richard Avedon, well known for being able to produce intense works, where external elements, expressions, poses, glances, appear to describe emotions and moods to the viewer and “worlds” away from him but that the photographer with his art is able to connect. I said Avedon and others not just for chance, because Avedon, who has done portraits of the greatest people on Earth, often gave his best representing ordinary people, such as stopping a moment in time perfectly capable of representing all life and soul of that person.

Chris seems driven by the same intention: his faces are those of famous names of the Italian community active in Second Life as Imparafacile Runo, Mexi Lane  (http://www.koinup.com/ChrisTower/work/258529), Marinu Gausman, Lorys Lane, Yaya Nishi, Paola Mills (http://www.koinup.com/ChrisTower/work/253971), Alice Mastroianni, Veronik Broome, Alii Vella, Kellykelly Vendetta, Adelchi Rossini, Tayra Dagostino (http://www.koinup.com/ChrisTower/work/96268/) and dozens of other characters great and small that have filled the news in recent years of the “Italian SL” (one of the first shots of Chris portrays the avatar of the Italian singer Irene Grandi used for her videoclip of “Bruci la città”, realised in 2007 in Second Life), but sometimes “whatever”  avatars (http://www.koinup.com/ChrisTower/work/265242). All faces of avatars that, for viewers who know nothing of their history, may seem anonymous puppets but Chris manages to find a characterization in each of them. A posture, a look, a tone prevailing, some elements that give the viewer as a piece of a puzzle can reconstruct the image of the “person behind the avatar”.

Besides the series of portraits, Chris has a second theme, that of travel, common to other fans of virtual worlds. Trips that can be performed in Second Life as in Blue Mars (or even in the now vanished Lively) that may be represented by a landscape as the representation of an event (from a marriage, such as those of Annagavina Merlin, http://www.koinup.com/ChrisTower/work/32103, to the world protests against Linden Lab). But always, as the portraits, are able to intrigue the viewer and make them wanting to know more, to understand something about the place, person or event in the center of the photo. Confirming the great artist and communication skills while providing a little “scrapbook” of these years spent in virtual worlds, perhaps, but certainly full of emotions and face meetings.