Last week I went to an exhibition based entirely around the theme of monobrows. It was a great exhibition, but I ended up being more fascinated by the gallery space it was in, and the two lovely people who run it.
Hell Gallery is actually quite hard to find. You go down a side laneway off Swan Street in Richmond, across some railway tracks, past a lot of graffiti covered walls, then round the back of a shop. There’s a charming tree-lined courtyard, some studio spaces to one side and a delightful little gallery crammed with artwork. It feels a lot like some cool interesting people actually live there and that’s because they do. Upstairs.
Gallery owners Jordy Marani and Jess Johnson started Hell Gallery in February. They both work freelance installing exhibitions in other gallery spaces, so have a lot of artistic know-how and contacts. Having their own gallery space enables them to have great opening night parties which can go on 'til late, and the atmosphere at Hell is a fluid mixture of interesting art and creative people in a very inviting space.
For the Monobrow show, they simply put the word out to all their arty friends and were quite surprised by the response. They told me the theme was pretty much just a joke. It doesn’t appear there’s an underlying heavy message about monobrows and society. Works ranged from straight-down-the-line self-portraits with monobrows, to very conceptual pieces, to hilarious works of wittiness. On opening night guests were given an adhesive monobrow to affix to their own foreheads to get into the spirit of the theme.
The monobrow show runs until June 21. Keep an eye out for future exhibitions because the gallery alone is well worth a visit. Check out the
Hell Gallery blog page for more information.
- Review by Cass Scott.