If art has often been understood as a place of catharsis for the artist, looking at Alys Paola’swork is like peeking through her soul. Like so many windows on a life filled with travel,creativity, bliss and trauma, her introspection is an invitation to reflect, not only on herpurposes, but also on our own.Alys Paola’ s pictures are a patchwork of her dreams and memories, work and life. They dealwith the loss of innocence that comes with experience, and the paradox of always feelingsystematically and utterly clueless in the face of the unexpected. The constant disruption ofour comfort zone, whether from endogenous or exogenous sources, is a recurring theme inher work. And while individuals may have taken center stage, they have never been sodisconnected from their true selves. Climbing the proverbial ladder, losing or finding oneself in the quest for success is also afavored theme throughout Alys Paola’ s production. As she questions identity and attainablegoals, adaptability and resilience are key to pushing forward, in spite of the natural fear of theunknown or worse yet, the void.Blurring the lines between dreams, reality, space and time, Alys Paola’ s abstract collagesprovide a playground for her doubts and existential questions to mingle and communicate, inhopes of making sense of it all and triggering a reaction in the viewer. Apparently naive, sometimes satirical images of universal themes and current topicspopulate the page. But randomness is a mere illusion. From the choice of vibrant pop colorsto the addition of bold architectural elements, nothing is left to chance. Every single shade,each graphic element has a meaning, a message. For Alys Paola, this body of work is aboutspreading awareness and telling a personal story that others can, hopefully, relate to. In herdreamlike worlds, floating objects and symbols ground the painting into reality in an array ofmetaphors that are an open invitation to interpretation. Meanwhile, if the oneiric dimension can be linked to surrealism and the many experiments ofthe Dada movement, it is also a reference to contemporary cinema. It is where the unsettlingambiguity of Chantal Akerman meets the staged, uncanny universes of Cindy Sherman.When you find yourself in a place where drama is strangely pleasing to the eye, where youcan find poetry in the misery of being human, where you can find hope in the beauties of theworld - even while they wither and die - then you are likely standing in front of an artwork,and the author just might be Alys Paola. Alys Paola is a French-American visual artist whose path has been marked by constantmovement across continents. She grew up in France, Belgium, and the United States, laterspending several years in Los Angeles before returning to Paris. Along the way, she lived inBangkok and traveled solo for months across South America, where sketching in solitudebecame both a retreat into her own inner world and an unexpected bridge to others, asstrangers would approach her through her drawings. These migrations and moments of displacement profoundly shaped her practice. Facedwith the need to adapt to ever-changing surroundings, she turned inward, cultivating animagination that became both sanctuary and language. Her work reflects this tensionbetween isolation and connection, order and chaos, memory and reinvention. Trained as an Interior Designer and Architect, she brings spatial clarity and structuralintent to her art, while embracing the fluidity of collage and mixed media. Using digital toolsalongside watercolor and ink, she creates dreamlike compositions that navigate the blurredboundaries between the personal and the universal.