Mònica Subidé
I don’t walk, I fly
New York | SoHo
January 9 - February 8, 2025
Nino Mier Gallery is pleased to present I don’t walk, I fly, Mònica Subidé’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery and first in New York. Showcasing a new body of paintings and works on paper, the exhibition is a distillation of Subidé’s experience living and working amidst the remote Catalan mountains near Barcelona. I don’t walk, I fly will be on view in our SoHo location from January 9th - February 8th, 2025.
Through abstracted figuration and still-life, Subidé skillfully builds a charming world of magic and mystery that is girdled by a distinct sense of embodied sensation. Set in domestic interiors or against the night sky, the works collectively communicate peaceful self-reflection in unity with anatopistic natural elements depicted in charcoal, ink, gouache, oil, and collage. With muted saturation, the artist merges the human with the ecological landscape as figures sprout wings, take on animal features, and decorate their person and environment with botanical motifs. In Yellow, blue, and pink flowers, a man is seen from the shoulders up as he stares pensively out of frame, an expanse of blue and grey blanketing the view behind him. The colourful tones that fragment his face in Cubism-inspired perspective are mirrored by the floral forms strewn across the background like stars. Similarly, in Flowering eyes I and Flowering eyes II, a kaleidoscope of hues blend and swirl to reveal two respective figures placing flowers on their cheeks and hair in delicate acts of self-accessory; their deadpan expressions hide the interiority hinted at by their engagement with nature and encompassing emotive pigments. In contrast, Garden view, I can’t see anymore, and Circle make up a series of charcoal works on paper drawn primarily in black-and-white. With only a limited array of colourful accents throughout, the work has no temporal markers from which to gauge the time of day; figures lounge about the wilderness in reflective solitude.
Subidé’s still-life works, devoid of figuration, remain subtly anthropomorphic with their erotic undertones and emotional rigor. In Still life of pears and vase, our attention is immediately drawn to the large, phallic, magenta vase pasted onto the centre of the work. Patterned with spots of black, red, and white, a palm-like sprout emerges from its opening with a slight downward curve; a plate of fruits and other abstracted objects seem to float around the vase in a dynamic frenzy against their frenetic yellow background. The objects take on a visible energy as the hand of the artist remains traceable and conspicuous. Subidé abandons the careful contemplation characteristic of the still life genre in favour of compositional and perspectival freedom, indulging rather in chance and the hand’s own practiced memory.
I don’t walk, I fly captures the enchanting tension between introspection and liberation, inviting viewers into a world where the boundaries between human experience and the natural world blur in enigmatic harmony. Subidé’s dynamic compositions, secretive figures, and textured surfaces speak to the complexity of solitude and the magic of self-expression. The intricate ties between figure and landscape reflect a sense of oneness with nature while retaining the mystery of their communion.
Mònica Subidé (b.1974, Barcelona, ES; lives and works in Barcelona, ES) studied at the Centre d’Art Massana, Barcelona. She has exhibited with Nino Mier Gallery, Brussels; Yiri Arts, Taipei; Soy Capitán Gallery, Berlin, Germany; Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, Germany, Galeria Herrero de Tejada, Madrid, Spain; and Ehrhardt Flórez Gallery, Madrid, Spain.