Jonny Briggs's Monstrares opened last week, where visitors came out for one of the least brutally freezing nights in a while. That's not to say it was not brutally freezing, it was, just less so. While we are all celebrating the failure of the weather services 100% certainty of snow today, yesterday and the day before, look back and see the attendees at Julie Meneret Contemporary Art . Some of these art patrons are not ever wearing coats, and there are a relatively small amount of hats (although hats can be misleading, as silly hats are pretty hip these days). It was cold, and the night was dark and it was only 6pm.
The work itself was good - the patterns of gaudy wallpaper hiding models, and small fingers peering around the edges of the photo kept the work light hearted, while giving the eye something to focus on away from the busy print motif. The most interesting piece was Filling the void a sculpture and photograph; in the photograph a square had been cut from the subject's face creating the void. Then, on a pedestal in front of the print was a square sculpture of the middle of a man's face resplendent with a gallic nose.
The gallery is definitely worth a daytime visit, before the frost and salt etch their indelible scar onto your shoes, mixed media - but be warned there are a lot of cold blues and what the viewer really wants to see, as this Winter, thankfully, comes to a close, are warm reds and perhaps purple. Purple at the least.
Text by John Hutt
Photographs by Chris Jack
