Liverpool Claude Monet exhibition ‘will bring his work to life’

An exhibition designed to “bring to life” more than 400 paintings by the renowned Impressionist artist Claude Monet has come to Liverpool.

Beyond Monet, at Liverpool Exhibition Centre, uses projection technology to allow visitors to experience pieces including Water Lilies, Impression, Sunrise, and Poppies at Argenteuil.

“What we have done is to imagine if we went with Monet to all the different locations he painted all over Europe,” said the exhibition’s creative director Mathieu St-Arnaud.

Visitors to the exhibition, which runs until 15 August, will see huge projections of Monet’s work beamed on to walls and other surfaces.

Mr St-Anaud advised people attending the exhibition to “just let go and don’t think about art – experience it as an image as Monet felt when he first saw it”.

Anna Perry, the project’s business development director, said Liverpool was chosen to host the first exhibition in Europe following the “overwhelming success” of the UK premiere of Beyond Van Gogh last year.

She also said the Liverpool Exhibition Centre team were “phenomenal to work with”.

Ms Perry praised the city’s “culture and acceptance of art and entertainment and the value that people put in it”.

She said: “It just felt like there was no other place that we could premiere this.

“It has only been seen in North America before.”

Ms Perry said the immersive exhibition “really allows people to tap into elements that they might not have been aware that they were going to be exposed to or feel”.

She added: “They see the artwork around them, they see it on the floor, they hear the sounds, and I think people just get really blown away.”

Because children can run around “and feel like they’ve gone inside paintings” it is a great first art exhibition for youngsters, she said.

Ms Perry said Beyond Van Gogh would also return to Liverpool.

Paris-born Monet, who was born in 1840 and died in 1926, is acknowledged as the founder of the Impressionism movement.