PERSONA A Masks Art Show & Parade

An eclectic art show and parade on Masks, Identity and Disguise caught flavoured.it attention for its extravagant, unapologetic, thought-provoking statements and creative expression. Forty international artists coming together exhibiting and presenting an array of art works inspired by masks, identity and disguise.

Since the Stone Age and across cultures, masks have been worn in spiritual performances, initiation, funerary rites, ceremonies, and in warfare. Historically, the mask wearer would assume a new identity, like for instance in African cultures where ancestors and animals masks have been, and still are used, to contact spirits powers. In Ancient Egypt, the deceased would have their faces covered with a mask to preserve their appearance in the afterlife. Protection was given to Samurai warriors who used the men-po facial armour to protect their faces and to intimidate their enemies during battle. The Venetian Carnival dating back to 1162, saw the rise of masks wearing in the XIII and XIV Centuries, and the event became stately sanctioned in the Renaissance. Wearing a mask helped everyone disguise their identity, and in this way, social differences were dispensed with and behaviours disinhibited. The Bauta mask was worn and every kind of behaviour was then permitted. The performance in the streets with mask wearing has been present in theatre worldwide portraying emotions and defining characters, for centuries. The beaked masks worn by doctors during the XIV Century plague, were filled with scented materials to bear with the noxious odours and bacteria due to the Black Death, almost precursors of the modern medical masks which emerged in the XIX Century. Another twist on mask wearing peaked in the XX Century with the Spanish Fever Pandemic, to be then re-used during the XXI Century Covid Pandemic where mask wearing became mandatory disguising and distancing people worldwide.

PERSONA, has seen mask making, textile, sculpture, painting, and photography exhibited, showcasing talents around the subject and use of the mask in contemporary society. A diverse interpretation on the experience of assuming different roles, identities and the power of disguise being playful or darker in its intention

Transformation, intrigue, enigma, inspiration, outrage, evolution, artistry, have all been incapsulated in this exhibition. As the curator Estelle Riviere Monsterlune has expressed it, Persona “is a celebration of the enduring allure of masks and the endless possibilities they offer for self-expression”. A mask maker herself, Monsterlune, also sees the mask as link between the fear  of time passing and denial of aging. Being French she has coined the term “Maskillage” - as in maquillage/make up and the mask that everyday we may put on our faces…

flavoured.it interviewed PERSONA’s curator and some of the artists in the Podcast you can find here on our Podcast page. LINK TO THE PODCAST

For many years, Estelle Riviere Monsterlune, a mask maker, had been wanting to curate a show on masks seen through the lenses of different artistic media. Having found the Crypt Gallery in London as a venue, which merges the outer world and underworld as crypts often do, Estelle decided to gather artists who take their creative inspiration from Masks.

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Painter Ella Guru is one of the artists, whose work centres on emotionally direct, narrative oil painting. By using a classical technique and re-evoking Old Masters like Caravaggio and Velasquez in a contemporary key, Guru reveals her storytelling through large-scale paintings and portraits.

Adam Shaw carries through the traditional way of masks making with the use of papier-mâché and the wearability of the mask. Taking inspiration from films, especially the ones he favoured during childhood, Adam is inspired by cinematography, magic, folk horror. People commission and wear his masks at events, Halloween, The Green Man parade in Hastings, masks balls events and for home deco.

Wearable masks are also made by  Juliette Imbert who is a multi-disciplinary self-taught artist. Having a background as a stylist, coming from the fashion Studio Bercot and having worked as a stylist assistant at the fashion house Jean Paul Gautier, Imbert has a very refined ability to use knitting needles. Knitting is one of the many media this artist uses to create her exquisite and beautifully crafted merino wool and silk lace masks.  Juliette loves the softness and texture of these masks, describing them - with a cheeky smile - as “a little bit Kinki”

Loz, a strong presence in this show. After having embodied the life of a circus performer, this mask maker - who loves working outside commercial and conventional constrains - exhibits a new face to the city of London. Enthusiastic about the slow process of mask making, Loz emphasises  how it can all turn into an extremely self-indulgent act. From the making of the mask and the different slow and detailed experimental stages this requires, to the performing with a mask.

At PERSONA, Sallyanne Wood exhibits a whole body mask made of lost - and found by the artist - gloves and socks. Over the period of two years, Wood retrieved individual gloves and socks lost in the streets, as if they were lost souls coming together. The artist even found a bag full of 36 socks, which were collected and added to the body mask. This happened on a Tuesday and  one of the socks had Tuesday written on it, then one with Friday and one with Sunday. Being Easter week, Wood had one sock for Good Friday and one sock for Easter Sunday. On Easter Monday,   walking in her lane, Sallyanne encountered another sock turned inside out which when unfolded, the image printed on it, made the central point of this art creation: Venus, the Goddess of Love and Beauty on one singular odd sock.

Alessandra Bester uses an innovative 3D pen, textile, recycled or recyclable materials to build structured wearable artistic outfits which merge with artworks. The circle/dot/spot takes centre stage in her creation, reflecting both her artistic inspiration and her philosophy of life, meaning continuity, growth, progress, cells, drops, pixels and much more.

Zac Senza persona formed as a unique way of masking in the world of fetish, art, performance and photography. Since the 1960s, Zac has been shaping an artistic  persona’s transformation through the use of silk, feminine artifice, such as false eye-lashes fluttering through the eyeholes cut in silk drapes. This art form has been fuelled by passion, making it a profound experience for both the artist and the viewer.

Many facets, many faces, many performances, many disguises, many views, many visions, many media, many shapes, many interpretations, around one inspiring creation: the Mask.