Mònica Subidé, from Barcelona, Spain, held her first solo exhibition in Taiwan this year, showcasing a series of works that revolve around a common theme: childhood. For years, she has immersed herself in the world of childhood, exploring the meaning of childhood. Is it the dream of being surrounded by a group of deer in the forest, the fairy tale of Alice falling into the rabbit hole, or the image of a girl holding a bird, a boy carrying a fish, and a butterfly landing on them? The childhood scenes that she has seen, dreamed of, experienced, and imagined, at different stages of childhood, are reimagined one by one through her thick, blurry brushstrokes and neutral color tones. At first glance, the colors of yellow, green, pink, and black intersect and stack, but upon closer inspection, the animals and humans in the painting come to life and wander through the forest and grassland.
Childhood memories that are lost in the mind are actually remembered by the body. We remember the feeling of security when we slept on our father's back, the warmth of our mother's hand holding ours, the intimacy of playing with siblings, the amazement of entering a fairy tale world, and the joy and sorrow of every family event. The body's perception is often greater than that of the memory in the mind. The dreams during naptime, the ghost stories made up by classmates, the nightmares of being afraid of going to school and taking tests, and the fear of growing up and becoming an adult - we may have forgotten the content of these dreams, the reasons for our fears, or the source of our anxieties, but the emotions and feelings that remain will always climb back onto us at some quiet moment, starting with the sensation on our skin and continuing to our visual and auditory senses. Mònica's paintings depict these sensitive emotional perceptions of childhood, the fragile heart hidden behind the expressions of the characters in the paintings, the uneasiness and fear beyond the innocence and childlike wonder, and the pure innocence of being immersed in dreams and fantasies.
The last child, in our last moment as a child, in the last dream before becoming a woman or man, in the last summer before growing and transforming, Mònica continues to explore the feelings and perceptions left behind by these memories. She seeks the images seen in childhood scenes, the fairy tale characters around us, the imaginary animals we raised, and the disappeared loved ones. She pauses the clock of growth and development, leaving us to feel these sharp perceptions exclusive to childhood, quietly stopping us in the last second before becoming an adult.