In the series Shanghai Memories, Monika Cicolella expresses the richness and the complexity of her relationship to the city of Shanghai, which deeply marked her. She takes advantage of the nuances and shades of grey enabled by Chinese ink painting to merge into one single painting, her different impressions of the city, a city that is so huge that you can remember it only by selected spots. Monika Cicolella displays different iconic buildings of the city next to each other and combines traditional and ultra-modern architectural features, sprinkling her paintings with small details from Shanghai streets' daily life. The colors of the paintings are either warm and vivid or cold and structured by the grey of ink, expressing all the intensity and the diversity of Monika Cicolella's connections to Shanghai.

"Shanghai is a city that has strongly marked me", Monika Cicolella explains."I could immediately feel the energy from the city and from its people, always on the move. You can constantly see the contrast between the modernity of the city centre and the traditional character of the water towns on the outskirts. For me, the most touching thing was to observe every day the great contrast between the gigantism of the metropolis and the small touches of humanity present at every street corner, whether in the architectural refinement of the oldest buildings or in the simplicity of the daily life of ordinary Shanghai people."