Monaco’s winter cultural calendar will gain a quietly distinctive addition in January with the arrival of a group exhibition that places stillness at the centre of the artistic experience. Hosted at Espace 22, the exhibition brings together five artists from across Europe and South America, inviting visitors to slow down and engage with works shaped by introspection, restraint and emotional subtlety.
Running from Thursday, January 8 to Saturday, January 31, the show presents a wide range of visual languages, from painting and photography to mixed media, united less by style than by mood. Each artist explores silence not as absence, but as a space where meaning, memory and sensation emerge.
French painter Bénédicte Ansaud contributes nocturnal oil works created in moments of isolation, drawing on a life shaped by multiple cultures and geographies. Her paintings reflect an intimate dialogue between solitude and identity. Romanian photographer Florin Mihai, by contrast, works through stark visual contrasts, layering black-and-white imagery with metallic elements to create compositions that play on light, symbolism and emotional tension.
Monaco-based artist Caterina Reviglio Sonnino introduces a softer register, producing refined pieces influenced by historic ceramic traditions and watercolour techniques. Her work emphasises balance and serenity through subtle chromatic choices. Julia Jakonda, an actress and self-taught visual artist originally from Ukraine and now living in Cannes, brings a more narrative approach, using drawing and painting to translate imagination, nature and inner life into expressive forms.
Completing the exhibition is Brazilian artist Arlette Lima De Matos, whose abstract mixed-media works are informed by her background in psychology. Splitting her time between Monaco and the south of France, she has developed a tactile, handcrafted practice since launching her career internationally in New York.
The exhibition will open with a public preview on Thursday, January 8 at 18:00 at Espace 22, located on boulevard d’Italie, before remaining open daily from late morning through early evening. Designed as an invitation to pause rather than rush, the show offers an alternative rhythm within Monaco’s vibrant art scene.
