Dreams From Childhood: The Story Behind My 2025 Gold Medal

Written By Dovile Sirmulyte

Some paintings arrive quietly and stay with me long after the last layer of paint is dry. Dreams From Childhood is one of them. In 2025 this original acrylic painting received the Gold Medal of the Sir Daniel K. Winn Award at the International Art Professionals Awards of Mondial Art Academia. I would like to tell you a little about how it was made, and what I hope you find in it.

A girl, a hare's head and a paper pinwheel

At the centre of the painting stands a small girl in a dark polka-dot dress. Her face is hidden behind the head of a hare, and in her hand she holds a white paper pinwheel, the kind every child has held up to the wind. Fish drift through the misty sky above her as if it were water. At her feet, long-beaked birds walk through pink and silver grasses.

Nothing in this scene could happen in the waking world, and yet for me it feels completely true. That is what surreal painting can do: it lets the logic of dreams stand next to ordinary things, until the two belong together.

Why so many of my figures wear masks

You may have noticed that the faces in my paintings are often hidden behind masks, porcelain faces or animal heads. A mask lets a figure become everyone and no one at once. When the girl wears the hare's head, she is no longer one particular child. She can be the child you were, or the child I was in Vilnius, where I grew up among Baroque churches, folk traditions and the long northern light.

Symbolism has always been my language. The hare, the fish, the birds and the pinwheel each carry meanings that are old, much older than any one painting. I prefer not to explain them all. A symbolist painting should leave a door open, so that you can walk through it with your own memories.

The colors of moonlight

Dreams From Childhood by Jolanta Talaikiene: a hare-masked girl in a polka-dot dress holds a paper pinwheel among reeds as fish drift overhead, surreal symbolist acrylic painting

Dreams From Childhood, acrylic on canvas. Gold Medal, Sir Daniel K. Winn Award, 2025.

I paint in what I call the colors of moonlight: soft blue-greys, pale silver, a little rose. In Dreams From Childhood these tones make the air feel thick and quiet, like the moment just before waking, when a dream is still with you but already fading.

Like all my work, the painting is built in fine, layered acrylic on canvas over many weeks. Every brushstroke is made by hand. No AI is used at any stage.

A year of recognition

I am grateful that this painting found its way to so many people in 2025. Dreams From Childhood received:

  • the Gold Medal, Sir Daniel K. Winn Award, International Art Professionals Awards, Mondial Art Academia;

  • an Honorable Mention in Surrealism and Symbolism, International Galleries and Art Professionals Choices (IGAPC), Mondial Art Academia;

  • the Choice of Art Confidential Magazine, California;

  • the Choice of Art Garage Istanbul, Turkey.

Gold Medal certificate, Sir Daniel K. Winn Award 2025, Mondial Art Academia, awarded to Jolanta Talaikiene for her painting Dreams From Childhood

Gold Medal certificate, Sir Daniel K. Winn Award, International Art Professionals Awards, Mondial Art Academia, 2025.

You can see all of my awards and exhibitions, and the paintings behind them, on The Artist page.

See the painting in person

Photographs never show the full depth of the layers or the way the light changes on the surface during the day. If you would like to know more about Dreams From Childhood, or to arrange a private viewing in my studio in Hillsborough Township, New Jersey, near New York City, please write to me through the inquiry form. I reply to every letter personally.

Dovile Sirmulyte