‘Alicia in the Secret Garden’ series

‘Alicia in the Secret Garden’ paintings are the illustrations for a children’s book in working process. The pictures feature her own daughters playing at Kew Gardens in south London.

The title refers to the classic children’s novel ‘The Secret Garden’ by the English author Frances Hodgson Burnett.

The artist has been inspired by the Victorian novel precisely because its themes have an echoing resemblance to present social issues concerning children, and identifies her work with the main idea behind the story: The natural environment has healing effects on the well-being of children.

‘The story of two unhappy, sickly, unattended by their parents, overcivilised children who achieve health and happiness through a combination of communal gardening, mystical faith, daily exercises, encounter-group-type confrontation, and a health-food diet.’ 

However, her art is not an explicit criticism towards our society today, but there is a psychological desire to escape from unpleasant realities.

‘Alicia in the Secret Garden’ watercolours describe a childhood lived for the second time through my daughters´ eyes. It´s like looking through a mirror, I reflect myself in them, experiencing feelings and sensations from old times. The same as leaning over a rose to smell its aroma with the reassurance that in a few days this same rose will be hanging lifeless from this same stem.

These watercolours express admiration for the Golden age of fantasy and joy. Perceptions seem to amplify, spaces are tremendous, colours and flavours intensify, the whole experience of reality is powerful, vulnerable and magical at the same time.

A childhood in close contact with the natural surroundings that evolves away from machines, consoles and animation cartoons, develops a creative play that doesn´t feed from dead, completed and artificial images of the world of Disney.

The artist thinks that children nowdays experience childhood on a high-speed train, reaching the adolescence station too prematurely. Why? What is the point of rushing into things? Why not let the wonder of innocence take its own course?