In Dreamworks abstraction and figuration constantly interrupt one another, while the boundary between dream and memory remains deliberately unstable. Rather than describing grief directly, the works follow its movement through longing, intimacy, confusion, acceptance and transformation.
Zoé Mad paints from the inside out. Working on canvases larger than her own body, she becomes physically immersed in the image, moving through longing and dreams. Reality dissolves as emotion takes over.
Dreamworks became a way of painting what could no longer be touched – memories, dreams, people and emotional states that continue to exist somewhere between presence and absence.
Rather than describing a scene, Mad searches for its emotional temperature. A figure, a room or a familiar gesture may serve only as a starting point before being absorbed into layers of paint. The works are built through this constant movement between observation and instinct, allowing the atmosphere of a moment to remain even after its details have disappeared.
Dreamworks is ultimately less about preserving memory than about changing its form. Through painting, what is fleeing, unresolved or impossible to hold becomes something that can be held and transformed.
