Review: Ms Adventure’s post modern take on Beardsley’s elegant decadence – Judi Thomas at Ground Coffee House, Hove

Judi Thomas – Ms Adventures – at the private view

Sussex Artbeat visited the private view of Ms Adventures show on Monday, and we loved the drawings. The viewer is first captured by design – light and dark, stillness and intensity, the body, the face – then led into dense details of pattern, abstraction and symbolic reference. Yes, the comparisons to Aubrey Beardsley are relevant: in the juxtaposition of flowing lines and white expanses of body, with intricate black pools of pen patterns in fabric and background; and in the easy presentation of erotic subject matter as design. But the artist, Judi Thomas’s style has moved on from Beardsley’s 1900’s elegant decadence. These new visions incorporate 1920’s flapper, 1970’s purple haze, 2000’s lgbtetc and Brighton’s psychedelic scene with its post modern look back to absinthe days. It’s post post modern, taking us from sensual hook to multiple cultural references, which Judi claims are entirely the results of her intuitive doodling process.

Judi’s elegant style was very present at the private view, with intoxicating coffee-tini’s served by a most charming cocktail waiter in period dress, and her own elegant self in emerald green cocktail gown gorgeously balancing on the edge of dissolving, as her agent talked of the directions Judi’s work is going – collectors editions of erotic art, grown up colouring-in books, and special portrait commissions. Investment advice: Buy Now.

Pictured below are the artist, cocktail waiter, agent, some early guests and some of the works on display at Ground Coffee House til 14 August, and some new work brought specially for the private view. To find out more – venue info, links to artist website, click here: http://wp.me/p488Yn-Q5