The Royal Standard presented the first Liverpool solo exhibition of painter and songwriter Mikey Georgeson. Bringing together a varied body of work from Mikey’s extensive career, the exhibition aimed to explore and resolve the tension between art and life.

Mikey identified the ‘Trope’ – a motif or device that while suggestive, does not carry the stigma of cliche – as the crack that opens between the audience and the artist. Eleven paintings focus on Mikey’s ongoing love of Liverpool Football Club as a trope through which he can explore ‘sending an emissary from his adult self to mix with the transcendental awe of his childhood’. He taps into memories of his boyhood bedroom in which his father had recreated the Kop, pasted together with faces cut from the Observer magazine.

Alongside his work as a visual artist, Mikey is also an accomplished musician. As ‘the vessel’ he is singer and songwriter in the cult rock art-band, David Devant and His Spirit Wife. In 2005, he began his solo career using the stage name Mr Solo and he performed at The Royal Standard private view on the evening of Thursday 7 June.