KDR is pleased to present La Mujer que Llora, a solo exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by Catalan artist Mònica Subidé. On view from February 28 through April 4, 2026.
Subidé regards painting as an active, living presence rather than a passive record. Each canvas acquires a distinct character. The process begins with the establishment of an abstract feeling within a pictorial composition, articulated through form and color. Subidé develops these elements over extended periods, sometimes spanning weeks, months, or years. In her practice, form and color are not predetermined but are discovered through sustained attention and repetition, ultimately reaching their final state.
Mònica Subidé conjures ethereal worlds on linen and paper that incorporate oil paint, pencil, and sometimes collaged motifs. Her tranquil, illusory scenes drift between abstraction, figuration, and still-life compositions. From her muted color palettes to her unfinished lines and quasi-cubist approach to shading, Subidé paints in a mode that recalls the work of midcentury Expressionists such as Egon Schiele, Ernst Kirchner, and the late work of Pablo Picasso, yet her surfaces cultivate a uniquely distanced, quiet warmth, located in her figures’ magnetic, secretive faces and in the limb-like floral arrangements that complement them.
In El Gran Somriure de la Dona Gris, the viewer’s attention is immediately drawn to the central gray, almost sculptural, female figure. Small rosy circles accentuate her cheeks, while a constellation of star shapes traces her collarbone, resembling jewelry. Her expression exemplifies a quality central to Subidé’s portraiture: knowing, slightly amused, neither fully accessible nor entirely withheld. The highlighter-green outline defining her torso introduces a graphic tension, suggesting the figure could dissolve into pure color at any moment. Subidé avoids psychological resolution, instead presenting a figure who smiles yet retains her secrets.
Subidé approaches painting as a comprehensive artistic practice, regarding it not as a futile act in which objects dissolve into emptiness, but as a force that reveals human sensitivity. The act of painting is grounded in introspection and the pursuit of freedom as an essential condition. In La Mujer que Llora, the weeping woman is depicted as a collision of planes and color fields. Subidé presents a figure who cries from both sides simultaneously, suggesting that sorrow, like identity, cannot be perceived from a single perspective. The work encourages viewers to engage in inward reflection, associating images with abstract emotions.
Mònica Subidé (b. 1974, Barcelona, Spain) studied at the Centre d’Art Massana, Barcelona. Her work has been exhibited at Nino Mier Gallery, Brussels; Yiri Arts, Taipei; Soy Capitán Gallery, Berlin; Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin; Galeria Herrero de Tejada, Madrid; Ehrhardt Flórez Gallery, Madrid; and Galería Pelaires, Mallorca. Her work is collected by the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, Madrid, Spain. She lives and works in Barcelona, Spain.
