557 burials in the walls and floors of the crypt built in 1822 beneath St Pancras Church resonate with the artwork of 40 artists. Persona is the brainchild of Estelle Riviere Monsterlune who corralled artworks from creative friends and colleagues linked to the curator’s otherworldly catwalks, underground markets, fetish dens and mixed media installations. This connection between curator and artist provides a heartfelt, loving, and affectionate tone for a celebratory exploration of the face as mask.

The crypt is home to many nooks, crannies, alcoves and discreet spaces sensitively linked to installations from a range of self-taught outsider and trained creators. 

A strong gathering of queer LGBT+ artists includes Amy Kingsmall, the goth twins Mastoff and Mastej, Thierry Alexandre, Alice of the dead, Pavel Gabas, Jaimie Freestone, and Charlie Jimenez. There is plenty here that is pounding with humour, horror and sexuality involving the naked body. During the opening night launch, artist Kingdom provided a wonderful camp comic musical act, pushing the boundaries of fashion. Guests at the launch wore striking hybrid fashionista masks that perfectly reflected the exhibition’s tone.

Highlights include Daddy St Fox. The gay artist’s earlier work celebrated the life of feral foxes in our big urban cities. New work involves face masks made from the endangered craft of wheat weaving, straw corn, and husk dolls. Red devils, horny flower masks, sun symbols and a circus fox mask reflect the artist’s connection with the world of soil and the harvest of wheat fields cut down with seeds scattered to grow again. The technical skill of the masks is immaculate and adds to a rich body of work from one of the UK’s remarkable contemporary gay artists.

Ella Guru from the Stuckist movement provides exquisite richly detailed oil paintings involving the painted face steeped in mythology and the sawdust and tinsel of life on a stage or a colour walk on the street.  Sallyann Wood creates body masks out of discarded lost gloves and socks found on the streets of London. These discarded dead cells of clothing take on new life. Alessandra Bester creates what may be forms of head wear although look closely as they conjure up another world. These are delicate creations that may look simple but it is the careful use of light to create lines of shadow that reveal interior worlds of the new born child or that of another face. Pamela is Dead creates breathtaking ethereal masks that feel like they may have once been graced by the spirit of Federico Fellini’s Satyricon.

Estelle Riviere Monsterlune takes centre stage with a range of work including a draped body laid out in a cloister with a death mask looking up at the world above.  A closer look reveals that this is also a secluded concrete alcove which is cracking up far more now than ever before. Are there other forces involved here? The work may be inspired by the creator’s love of Hammer horrors and is very suggestive, powerful and deeply moving.

What lies beneath is also the subject of Zac Zenza’s chronological study of a life of female body and face camouflage from youth in the sixties and life during the decades that follow. Times may change, although these photographic images and video footage of a lifelong fetish for silk head coverings and face masks reveal an essentially unchanging sense of the persona of life. The only real changes may be in the way early textiles of soft silk evolve into the shimmering look and feel of more contemporary plastic and latex rubber.

It has been claimed that the smallest mask is the red nose of the clown. Persona reaches far beyond the nose for an exhilarating, often wildly funny, sometimes disturbing look at thoughts and ideas about what lies behind masks and all of our concealed identities.