There, inside the forest, where everything is dense and leafy, inhabits the fantasy of the stories. The machinery of the imagination beats in the heat of a light sifted by the tops of the trees, under whose branches, lying in the sunset light, magic takes place. The stories that host our dreams feed on the emptiness that the mystery leaves in its way so that we fill it with new stories. It is a perfect tension between innocence and maturity, between the desire to play and the awareness that all this is part of an unreal world. But the door is open and, although someone warned us once that we should not enter, we can not avoid it.

Mònica Subidé

Los niños de papel, 2019

Óleo, lápiz y collage de papel japonés sobre lino

54 x 65cm

Mònica Subidé

Los hijos del rey bufón y sus buitres, 2018

Oil, pencil and collage on wood

80 x 110cm

Mònica Subidé

Jardín de Luces, 2019

Oil and collage on linen

54 x 65cm

The eyes of animals are crystal spheres that curve and reflect the environment. The green leaves form superimposed fans, like vegetable screens that yield sweetly in our path. We advance in search of a refuge, a haven in the middle of the grove where we can rest our exhausted mind of so much information. And so be able to think. Silence (which is not true silence) fills with faint sounds, and we enter loneliness accompanied, in a path without fixed direction that takes us to the bottom of our being. We face these images with the feeling of having seen them before, but not in real life, but in the reality of our dreams. They are dream pictures that remind us of fairy tales, enchanted forests, spring evenings, being lying on the grass while we watch the clouds pass by.

Mònica Subidé

Alma de ciervo, 2019

Oil and collage on linen

38 x 55cm

Mònica Subidé

La princesa ladrona. Niñas pez, 2018

Oil and collage on wood

25 x 18.5cm

Mònica Subidé

Travesia en el bosque de Nolde Mirocco. Serie exploradores, 2018

Oil and collage on linen

114 x 146cm

The often difficult task of theorising about painting loses its meaning again on this occasion. These snatches stolen from a dreamy mind lead us to a conceptual contradiction. Let's glimpse suffering, but also placidity and serenity. A natural and delicious calm, not without frights and scares of the soul when you think of existential truths such as freedom. Our mind can play tricks on us, look for the misunderstanding between state and situation, create the fallacy of being free but locked in oneself. No. Let's get rid of artifices. There, inside the forest, where nobody sees us, we are what we really are and surrender to our own life, contradictory and elusive as it is.

···

We asked Mònica about his latest work that is on show in Bea Villamarín Gallery, a pictorial proposal that takes us to an almost oniric world where time seems to stop.

In previous works, you have explored the connection between life and death. The allusion to the emptiness you make in "The desire to be a deer", is it also a reference to that dichotomy between opposing elements, such as childhood and adulthood, consciousness and unconsciousness?

I have never considered that there was a dichotomy between childhood and adulthood or consciousness or unconsciousness. For me, in both cases, we must accept the first to live the second. The allusion to the void, always talking about me, is just that state where you intend to stop and vanish, in the concept of idea-mind, to be in a déjà-vu. They are difficult emotions to express in words and painting. Abstract emotions that speak of emptiness in humans are always complicated. I am very interested in human being and emotions, so childhood is something that fascinates me because it is the beginning towards life and where we take the road. I usually interpret emotions in stories; narrating in painting is more like writing. On this occasion, there are many pieces where I do not want to tell, just lie down, be in a state of déjà-vu. When I started about four years ago with a new pictorial language, my nine-year psychoanalysis was just over. It was the beginning to try to interpret childhood ideas and dreams.

What does the deer represent as a concept in this pictorial series, is it the observer or is it the observed being?

Always for me, it is the observer; it is the link between man and his soul. The deer in many different occasions in my pieces always represents the wild animal that we are, and that desire to be free, without knowing what a world in freedom is. It is an act of protest, poetic, dreamlike, subtle, trying to be freer in our everyday world, in small things.

Mònica Subidé

Flor azul, topo marron, 2019

Oil and collage on linen

22 x 27cm

Mònica Subidé

Cuenco amarillo con girasol verde, 2019

Oil and collage on cardboard paper

40 x 58cm

You have stated that you feel comfortable with large formats, have you chosen the medium size for any reason for this collection?

I was working for years in very large formats; I am increasingly interested in the medium format for a simple matter of privacy. I really wanted to be able to present nearby, less spectacular pieces and force the viewer to stop a few minutes, in front of the pieces. The large format is often a fast-track-look format. I wanted a slow exhibition because the last three years have been very intense, with a lot of production, and little time to reflect. I wished I could find a closer dialogue between one’s self and painting. With this, I do not mean that I am not interested in the large format, but it is a very different mental state, which on this occasion, I did not feel when painting. I believe that this exhibition came at a time when the physical and mental exhaustion of recent years forced me to lie down and rest, reconnect with myself, review my trajectory in order to continue advancing, and be able to reinvent new ways to transmit that feeling of emptiness.

The painting of Daniel Bum (Villena, Alicante, 1994) takes shape as a space for subjective elaboration, where the figure emerges not so much as a representational motif but as a vital necessity. The repetition of this frontal, silent character responds to an intimate process: painting becomes a strategy for navigating difficult emotional experiences—an insistent gesture that accompanies and alleviates feelings of loneliness. In this sense, the figure acts as a mediator between the artist and a complex emotional state, linking the practice of painting to a reconnection with childhood and to a vulnerable dimension of the self.

The strong autobiographical dimension of his work coexists with a formal distance that is not the result of conscious planning, but rather functions as a protective mechanism. Visual restraint, an apparent compositional coolness, and an economy of means do not neutralize emotion; instead, they contain it, avoiding the direct exposure of the traumatic. In this way, the tension between affect and restraint becomes a structural feature of his artistic language. Likewise, the naïve and the disturbing coexist in his painting as inseparable poles, reflecting a subjectivity permeated by mystery and unconscious processes. Many images emerge without a clearly defined prior meaning and only reveal themselves over time, when temporal distance allows for the recognition of the emotional states from which they arose.

The Long Night. Oil, acrylic, and charcoal on canvas. 160 × 200 cm. 2024.

The human figure appears frequently in your work: frontal, silent, suspended. What interests you about this presence that seems both affirmative and absent?

I wouldn’t say that anything in particular interests me. I began painting this figure because there were emotions I couldn’t understand and a feeling that was very difficult for me to process. This character emerged during a very complicated moment in my life, and the act of making it—and remaking it, repeating it again and again—meant that, during the process, I didn’t feel quite so alone. At the same time, it kept me fresh and connected me to an inner child who was broken at that moment, helping me get through the experience in a slightly less bitter way.

Santito. Acrylic and oil on canvas. 81 × 65 cm. 2025.

There is a strong affective dimension in your work, but also a calculated distance, a kind of formal coldness. What role does this tension between emotion and restraint play?

I couldn’t say exactly what role that tension plays. My painting is rooted in the autobiographical, in memory, and in situations I have lived through that were quite traumatic for me. Perhaps, as a protective mechanism—to prevent direct access to that vulnerability, or to keep it from becoming harmful—that distance appears unconsciously. It is not something planned or controlled; it simply emerges and remains there.

Night Painter. Acrylic on canvas. 35 × 27 cm. 2025.

Your visual language oscillates between the naïve and the unsettling, the familiar and the strange. How do these tensions coexist for you, and what function do they serve in your visual exploration?

I think it reflects who I am. One could not exist without the other. The naïve could not exist without the unsettling; for me, they necessarily go hand in hand. I am deeply drawn to mystery and to the act of painting things that even I do not fully understand. Many of the expressions or portraits I create emerge from the unconscious; they are not planned. It is only afterwards that I begin to understand them—and almost never immediately. A considerable amount of time always passes before I can recognize how I was feeling at the moment I made them.

Qi. Acrylic on canvas. 81 × 65 cm. 2025.

The formal simplicity of your images does not seem to be a matter of economy, but of concentration. What kind of aesthetic truth do you believe painting can reach when it strips itself of everything superfluous?

I couldn’t say what aesthetic truth lies behind that simplicity. What I do know is that it is something I need in order to feel calm. I feel overwhelmed when there are too many elements in a painting, and I have always been drawn to the minimal—to moments when there is little, when there is almost nothing. I believe that this stripping away allows me to approach painting from a different state: more focused, more silent. I can’t fully explain it, but it is there that I feel able to work with greater clarity.

Crucifixion. Acrylic on canvas. 41 × 33 cm. 2025.

To what extent do you plan your work, and how much space do you leave for the unexpected—or even for mistakes?

I usually feel more comfortable leaving space for the unexpected. I am interested in uncertainty; having everything under control strikes me as rather boring. I have tried it on some occasions, especially when I set out to work on a highly planned series, with fixed sketches that I then wanted to translate into painting, but it was not something I identified with. I felt that a fundamental part of the process disappeared: play—that space in which painting can surprise even myself. For that reason, I do not tend to plan too much, and when I do, it is in a very simple way: a few lines, a plane of color. I prefer everything to happen within the painting itself.