Chilly Con Carnage 29/10/06

The Monorex boys joined hands with Matsuri for a special edition Chilly Con Carnage. For those of you that don’t know, Chilly Con Carnage is an art event held at London’s Ice Bar, Below Zero off Regent Street.

Monorex has already held two previous parties at the plush venue, but thought they would give it a twist this time by incorporating the night with the Japanese art crew Matsuri, made famous by their event held at Brick Lane, East London.

The day started early at 1pm. All the artists gathered on Heddon Street for a massive art fest. All with their own tools in hand they began to draw paint and sketch in their own style on the specially purchased canvas.

All of the pieces were for sale once the party kicked off at 6pm. The artists taking part consisted of Teck 1, Lunartik, Mr Shrew, Sickboy, Wen, Ink Fetish, Sichi, Undergrowth, Hiroyuki Arai and Tortoy+Hide to name a few. Most of those mentioned done well to make it down after the heavy night before at the Secret Wars event.

Both the Eastern and Western styles blended very well together, and with bottles of Swiss Cannabis Iced tea and Cranberry juice, people all started mingling and enjoying themselves on the cold sunny Sunday. With the art being painted on canvases all along the cobbled street, the artists started to stir up some interest from the on looking diners at exclusive restaurant Momo’s.









Many of the Japanese artists had a very different approach to their artwork, which I found most interesting. Several of them painted with their fingers whilst seated with bare feet. Don’t ask me why the chose this technique, but the finished pieces had loads of interest. Even two buyers were fighting over one particular piece presenting a girls face painted in neon colours. It was definitely one of the best pieces of the day.




The party began at 6pm and for those who bought the £15.00 tickets, meant a chance to visit the famous ice bar itself, consisting of frozen and sculptured Swedish Ice. The maximum time allowance you are allowed to stay is 45minutes and is an experience not to be missed. For the rest of the crowd, the party got off to a start downstairs in the Below Zero Bar. With an exciting Cocktail and tasty food menu it was easy to enjoy nursing our hangovers from the previous night.





With select beats from some of the hottest DJ’s around, such as Skunkboy, ITS, Patchwork Pirates and the Geisha Disco Boys the night got off to a good start.




It was not the biggest event compared to the previous two events, but I think that is partly due to the fact that the regular crowd had all been in attendance at Juno Bar the night before. The night was definitely a useful learning curve that will probably give more opportunities for Monorex to hold events at Below Zero and also work alongside Matsuri in the near future.