Based in Massachusetts, Mack devotes her weekends to drawing. A lifelong artist and graduate of Montserrat College of Art, she draws her way into another world — a dreamy counterspace that hums with mischief, melancholy, and wonder.

Mack’s coloured pencil drawings convey a sense of intimacy, detail, and craftsmanship; there is a quiet power in small-scale works that reward close looking. The medium is increasingly recognized in contemporary art circles for its honesty, precision, and charm. In Mack’s hands, coloured pencil becomes a tool of quiet transformation — her most-used shades, Blush Pink and Lime Peel Green, help build alternate worlds that feel both tender and uncanny.

Her drawings feel like snapshots from a parallel universe where outcasts are tenderly seen and celebrated. Figures pose as if for strange family portraits, inspired by vintage photos and animated by a desire to reimagine belonging. Many of the people (or entities) Mack draws have two pairs of eyes. “It gives them a second way of looking at the world, almost like putting special lenses on,” she once said.

While wholly her own, Mack’s work recalls the dream logic of British surrealist Leonora Carrington (1917-2011), whose worlds are inhabited by animal-human hybrids, towering goddesses, and enigmatic beings in spaces of magical transformation. Like Carrington, Mack gives form to the subconscious — but with a lighter touch, a kind of tender absurdity that invites rather than overwhelms.

“I adore supernatural and fantasy worlds with ghosts, werewolves and monster-y kind of things,” says Mack. “I don’t feel they are a threat; they’re all just a part of the landscape and are just as valid there as anyone else.”

Massachusetts Dreaming: The Surrealistic World of Rhea Mack opens on 11 April and runs until 8 May 2025.

Come dream with us.