‘This afternoon we are invited to contemplate the work of a Dutch artist, Monica Rotgans, who, like most of Spanish painters has been fascinated by the theme of the bull – we may say, watching Monica’s work, her paintings, drawings and sculptures, that, like Goya, she has a deep passion for the world of bulls, she feels them and loves them and this is why she can draw them with impressive clarity.

There is no doubt, watching the works displayed here today that for our painter the bull is a wonderful specimen.
The Toro de Lidia, that is to say the fighting bull painted by Monica Rotgans, enjoys a purely wild life, preserving its functional activities, its primitive instincts.
Monica has been able to translate the reactions of the bulls in her pictures. They are spontaneous and natural. I personally think that the definition of the bull by Bellsola: savage, lively, vigorous, strong and nimble is perfectly expressed by Monica’s pencil.
Her artist sensitivity has revealed to her the beauty and magnificence of the bull and has enabled her to create in her works the atmosphere, the light and the sense of movement necessary to translate the nervous and electrifying lines of these animals. Monica plays with its lights and shades so as to give dramatic intensity to the scenes; she grasps forms and in some of her painting she mixes the colours, red, and brown, blood and earth, in order to show the brutality of the world.
And what also draws my attention is the enthusiasm and speed with which the drawings have been executed, creating and recreating with great precision the picture of the beautiful and strong animal, showing its flexibility and elasticity, its solidity and strength as well as the grace of its swift movements.
Is it possible to say, as it has been said of Goya or Picasso that for Monica Rotgans the bull is a symbol, a totem, something like a sacred animal?
Maybe, but in any case one thing is without doubt, that the subject of the bull palpitates in her soul, in the deep level that determines personality.

I want to finish my speech thanking the artist for asking me to open this exhibition and congratulating her for her paintings which have brought to my memory the beautiful words of one of our greatest writers, Juan Jiménez before the image of tihs splendid animal:
“the black, lone bull rises, sharp and beautiful, in a cloud of dust that the rising sun gives a tinge of copper to”.’