- Ray Monde
I can see just how you would have been as a kid #art #collage
Sometimes you meet someone new and you can immediately see how they would have been as a kid. In fact, it’s one of my favourite internal pastimes, to imagine people when they were little.
A lot of the stuff we experienced as children comes out in our grown up lives. You can see it in our gestures, you can see it in how we respond in social situations and you can often catch it unawares in times of quiet surprise.
I’m working on an exhibition called Dry Your Tears which opens at the Stur Gallery on September 5. It’s loosely based on my experiences as a child, growing up with two older brothers and all those rich adventures we had, both lovely and unpleasant but adventures nonetheless.
Like pooing in the bath when Uncle Trevor came round to visit because I was too scared to get out. Or crying in the washing as it hung on the clothes line. Or loving your favourite toy so much that it broke, which is what Tiddy Can’t Stop Dancing is all about (below).
For a long time I ignored the kid, thought things I experienced as a child were silly and inconsequential. Whether they were good or bad, they’ve shaped who we are and for me, they’re good to work through on canvas, whatever the outcome.