The experience of Tate Modern this past Monday was inspiring and reflective. While the sum of all of the works were impressive, from sound to sculpture, the one that affected me the most and transported me to a different place in my mind, was “The Snail” by Henri Matisse.

I started the experience at Tate Modern hoping to fall in love with a work of sound or a new popular modern installation that was packed full of other eager spectators. However, when I entered the third room of my journey, I looked over to my right and immediately fell away into my own memories, space, and completely isolated experience.

When I was young, primarily under the age of 6, my mom would concisely review her own art history book with me. Working as a kindergarten teacher in the United States before I was born, she always set aside a block of time in the school year to teach her students about art. Modern, historical, and abstract. This personality trait she developed in her classroom surely followed her home, and from when I was old enough to have a slight grip on memory, she exposed me to the same perspective.

Enamoured by colour, Henri Matisse always caught my eye. I ignored any of his old works, I didn’t even know his name; I just loved the colour. When the concept of who and what entered my head I asked my mom about the pictures I would stare at unassumingly. That prompted a more structured lesson on Henri Matisse and it has stuck with me all of this time, without learning more and without any further questions. He shifted from a brush to scissors. When I asked why, my mom simply answered, “He couldn’t paint anymore, so he continued making art with something he could do, cutting paper and adapting”.

The idea of learning and adapting is ingrained in our nature. As people, as a community, and as a species on Earth. When something does not work for you anymore, and there is a force still telling you to create, there is a way. The result that came from Henri Matisse’s shift were creations that somehow possess just as much, if not more to some, meaning and depth as his work done with a brush.

This simple yet necessary perspective, which my mom confirmed as soon as I called her after the trip, was something that stayed tucked away in my memory for about 14 years. The trigger was the painting from Monday, my first Matisse. I have no critiques for it, and I have no other opinion on most of the other pieces I was witness to, because of the impact a singular one had on me. It was individual, it was sentimental, and it was a reminder to me of the power of art.