Les murs sont tombés (The walls have fallen), showing at La Maison des Artistes through Sept. 4, is a sublime exploration of childhood, terror and delight.

Melanie Rocan has been gaining notoriety for her paintings across Canada - most recently she was a finalist in the 2006 RBC Canadian Painting Competition.

This body of work - impressively created within just the first four months of 2007 -sees Rocan move away from the small, murky watercolours she created during her schooling (at the U of M and Concordia) and into territory that is grand in both scale and subject matter.

Dreams - or, more specifically, nightmares - play a large part in the construction of the works. Sleep images have been analyzed by hordes of people through the ages, and many have argued their relationship to the subconscious memory. Rocan melds these ideas in these works.

Here, carnivals appear to be metaphors for both childhood innocence and confusion. Many of the figures in Rocan's work are surrounded by hints of midway lights, big-top banners and trapeze ropes. In Pony, a small young girl gazes at the viewer while riding a merry-go-round pony. Her look is not a happy one, and, when combined with the train-track lines and morbid, muted tones, the work becomes unsettling and sombre.

Ghoulish greens and misty blues set the background for many of the works, affecting viewers' emotional reactions. On a wall of smaller grouped works, Rocan is able to delve deeper into the subject matter. Petite shadowy studies of abandoned spaces again evoke a dreamy feel.

Works such as Laissez aller and Balancer emit an overwhelming sense of loss of control. Rocan pummels the canvases with debris and turmoil, which are thrown against a quiet and serene figure or setting. The tension between calm and chaos seems electric. It takes a powerful eye and hand to carefully align polar opposites in works without causing a big, ugly mess, and Rocan clearly has this capability.

In a small, darkened area of the gallery, Rocan has constructed a voyeuristic dollhouse. While makeshift campsites and back alleys (littered with miniatures of partner Shawn Morin's work) are open and available for viewers, messy studios, skeleton rooms and discreet encounters hide behind the closed walls. Looking through peepholes into these closed spaces creates a intriguing, disturbing unease.

To say these works are beautifully haunting would be an understatement. Rocan has the remarkable ability to realize dimensions of unconsciousness.