All posts by Sir Realist

I am a surrealist artist originally from Birmingham, Alabama, and have been professionally trained with a degree in design from the University of Montevallo. My original paintings have been featured in galleries and sold across the country and online.

Transition

Transition means a change or adjustment from one state to another. In sitting on the throne, the figure seen is experiencing a transition, rising above her world and becoming empowered. The pillars of night and day are centered on her. The world
is beneath her, along with her fears and concerns. With her empowerment comes a sense of calm, a transition from what she was to what she will be. It is a transition as seamless as the sun and moon rising.The throne is a clawed hand, supporting her. She holds a staff with a similar clawed tip to show the independence beyond her surrounding support. Her eyes locked ahead, she is a confident and strong individual, rising to new heights in her life and taking charge of her transition.

This painting is acrylic on canvas and measures 30″ by 40″

The Road

The Road was a commissioned piece, and the largest single image on a series of three canvases. The image shows a journey along a winding road, crossing from mountains on the right to a length of beach on the left. The colors are vivid and surreal, the scope and scale stretched and enhanced to make the scene a panorama of activity. We all take our own journeys along the road of life and how we get there is just part of the enjoyment. An interesting note on this piece is that the lighthouse seen in the distance was not originally part of the completed work but was added on the spot after it was up and displayed.

This painting is Acrylic on three canvases, total measurement approx. 12′ by 5′

The Oasis

The Oasis is a very surreal look at a common scene. These are the more simplistic and pure interpretive scenes I enjoy painting. The only intention is to show a part of reality that has been twisted just enough to provide thought or imagination. Here, we simply see a tremendous hand shading a much needed oasis for a weary desert traveler. Hands are a frequent recurring theme across much of my work and represent the role of creation and the human hand in the process of creating art.

This painting is acrylic on canvas and measures 28″ by 24″

The Feeding

Upon first viewing this painting, it may simply seem to be a portrait of a rather surreal and distorted girl. Looking more carefully at the surroundings and positioning tells a much more sinister story. The Feeding is about the end of innocence, the corruption and consumption of purity. The girl is intended to appear innocent, even naive, standing on the street alone. Her hands are purposely positioned over her womb. The trash can behind contains milk and an egg carton, symbolizing purity and fertility. This is a representation of throwing away those values that is very common today. Even the small flower represents delicate purity while the cracks in the sidewalk show the destruction of that. The fact that the girl’s own shadow is about to consume her has to do with her unknowing contribution to her own destruction. The street sign makes it plain… Caution.

This painting is acrylic on canvas and measures 24″ by 32″

The Face of Myth

The Face of Myth is made up of three individual paintings, each representing a mythical beast. In tradition, Dragons represented good, while the Chimera, a creature formed of three creatures (lion, ram, and serpent) represented evil and chaos. The Phoenix, while most notably representing rebirth, is also known as a balancing force. So in this depiction, Phoenix serves to balance good on the right, Dragon, with evil on the left, Chimera.

These paintings are acrylic on canvas, and each measure 24″ by 24″

The Enigma of Life

The Enigma of Life is a riddle wrapped in canvas and covered over with paint. One of the largest single canvas paintings I have completed, it represents not just a dreamlike and surreal landscape but a choice and a hunt that we all will make at some point in life. We have to find where we belong and what our purpose is. But the key to our lives is sometimes hidden, and often in plain sight. Getting that key and finding what it fits can be a goliath challenge to the strongest of us. Here we see the key of life, as represented by the symbols inscribed on the giant key. We also see the river of where we will travel and following that river we find the unknown waiting on the other side of the keyhole.

This painting is acrylic on canvas and measures 30″ by 48″

Sublimitas

Sublimitas means ‘loftiness’ and this painting bears that title simply to represent the extreme height the surreal structure occupies. The construction of this landscape, this structural series of paths and pillars is intended to be one purely out of the imagination, a dreamlike place we all might find ourselves when eyes are closed. The two figures represent something very real though. They are connected by being there and sharing in this landscape, this world. And yet they are separate, perhaps by choice, perhaps by things out of their control. They may seek to find each other or they may struggle with the acceptance that they never will. This image is intended to be one of either tragedy or hope in accepting that some things are too high to quite see over, but there is always a path to reach the end, if we only choose to take that first step together.

This painting is acrylic on canvas and measures 30″ by 40″

Sir Realist

Sir Realist is a name I adopted some time ago and the connotation of a medieval knight venturing into unknown lands, sword in hand, has always appealed. This is, as best I can explain, a self portrait of sorts showing my early beginnings in landscape painting, of which many featured the scene at the bottom of this painting. I grew up and out from merely showing a scene and into creating new ways of seeing the world around us. The armor can be seen to hold an image of the painting Creation which holds a very special place in my journey as Sir Realist. Similarly, the sword is made up of surreal imagery, the parts that make the whole serving as individual scenes in themselves that change or distort depending on where they are viewed.

This painting is acrylic on canvas and measures 30″ by 40″

Sinister13

There are two separate paintings of a similar image as this one. They both feature the same theme, one of traveling into the unknown, taking a risk, and journeying beyond one’s comfort zone. This painting is the acrylic painting of the pair and titled Sinister 13. The colors are more intense and contrasting in this as a shadowy figure stands, having traveled a road and reached a crucial turning point. Will they turn away from the unknown? Are they to strike off on their own? Or is the journey only just beginning and the image is there to remind us of the masks we wear to hide our fear of change?

This painting is acrylic on canvas, measuring 28″ by 24″

Reduction

Done in the same style and intent of the much larger painting, Creation, Reduction takes the formless void and reduces it, breaks it down to basic elements showing an almost sculptural model that at first may not appear to be what it is. A goal of surrealism and especially my surrealism is to take the ordinary and twist it, but not so much so that it loses all meaning. The meaning must be unique to each viewer. Reduction is surrealism and at the most basic form, the most reduced complexity.

This painting is Acrylic on canvas and measures 16″ by 16″