In may 7-17 I was in Brande, Denmark, to work on a secret huge project with and my friend and amazing mexican artist Carlosalberto Garcìa Hernandez. We painted a 12 x 9 meters wall. Together on that scaffold for several days painting and talking, we left many emotions in that mural and when it was revealed to people on july 1 we both was also in a awe…that’s how it was born.

When I saw the small window in the low part of the façade I immediately thought to transform it in a standing door! I imagined the white door as a surreal gate, a time slot in a grey hallway.

At first I had in mind to paint inside the hallway something related to Andersen’s Red Shoes novel. Then I conceived about my childhood and at once I reminded that I was suggested more by the tale Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson). When I was child I totally wanted to be Alice and now as then that hallway returns several times in my nightmares.. Well, just in that moment I started to made my sketch and after some changes on the face it was fixed.

Then I asked to Carlos to help me in this project. I already worked with him in Mexico and in Germany and the synergy was perfect. In ten days we completed the painting and we felt in love with that mural as in our house in the wood. We got a wonderful light in the sky till night and we saw a big deer as in a dream. I believe that also that magic surrounding has been fundamental for our creation and especially that nature made a connection between my strong and melanconic way to paint and the gentle and lively mood of Carlosalberto’s art.

I chose Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland cause it is really a special story for my personal life and it returned often in feelings. Carroll describes the fall into the rabbit-hole as very long and he mentions bookshelves (I’m a Librarian!) on the sides of the hole. Perhaps it is also an escape into literature he hints at and I deem in that way of travel too.

I loved Carroll both for his irony and his dark side. There’s a lot of humour in the first Alice’s book, but in the second the mood becomes darker and melancholic. The story about Alice falling through a hole and finding herself in a silly and nonsense world, is fairly guileless as a tale. Moreover the underlying story is about a girl maturing away from home in what seems to be a world ruled by chaos and nonsense, is quite a frightening one. Alice finds herself immersed in different situations involving curious animals being all alone and she cries quite often when it’s impossible to obey the rules of the Wonderland. She hasn’t got any help at all there. The theme with Alice growing and shrinking into different sizes could reflect the ups and downs of life with young people sometimes feeling adult and sometimes quite the opposite.

The quote “Everyone in Wonderland is mad, otherwise they wouldn’t be down here” told by the Cheshire Cat can be given an existential meaning. Is it that everyone alive is mad being alive, or everyone dreaming himself away is mad due to the escape from reality? Time is a very central theme in the story and a quote that expresses Carroll’s feelings for getting old is: “We are but older children, dear, / Who fret to find our bedtime near.”

Surely the subject on Carroll’s tales is really vast and there could probably be years spent on it without reaching a definitive lecture of it and on symbols inside the novel… that’s why we suggest visitors to use also their own imagination and enjoy our artwork as a mind travel.

I want to thank Henrik Kraglund, Ole, Mogens, Evald and all the Lions for their effort and Jette fron the Tourism Brande. They were amazing for what they did to make the project happen. Also we want to thank the lovely Dina of Cafè Tankefryd for her help in hosting us with delicious food and warm feelings during our stay in Brande. I drew a portrait of her and I put it in this gallery too 🙂