THERE were balloons hanging outside. No, not some child's birthday being announced but a Liverpool art gallery opening.
The Almiro Gallery has opened in Mersey View, Waterloo, not an area normally associated with high art.
But it was a sign of the changes brought on by Liverpool's European Capital of Culture success, a gallery not full of half-baked landscapes but mostly intriguing abstracts. The works, by Merseyside artists, were all for sale.
The gallery has been created in a warehouse by the McCarthy family below where Alan McCarthy has had a recording studio. Brother Roy McCarthy thought this was an ideal site.
The Almiro Gallery will open properly next year with a series of exhibitions.
Meanwhile, it is opening four days a week to show off some interesting work.
Until the end of the year it is exhibiting a group show revealing just what talent there is locally and what is likely to come up next year.
Roy McCarthy has four works on show in the exhibition. One of them, Fading Fast, consists of a dozen canvases with faded photographs covered by paint and other media.
Paul Butler's pastels and watercolours are about the most traditional landscapes mostly set around Liverpool with the Albert Dock and Liver Building being particular subjects.
