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.

Intrusion

Representing the dark side of the surreal, Intrusion represents not as much the dreamlike and colorful but the nightmarish and disturbing. We all have a tendency to imagine the worst. The thoughts intrude on us, much like the image here. But there remains the question, which is intruding? Is it the image that intrudes on our consciousness or our morality that intrudes on the image? A similar question, which in the painting is intruding on the other more, the creature from the shell, or the fingers of the hand?

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

Ingenuity

A simpler image there might not be. This painting shows the concept of ingenuity, the brilliance of an idea become life by a lightbulb, illuminated on its own and held by a human hand. This painting takes a simple concept and shows it in as simple a surreal way as possible, with bright, vivid colors.

This painting is acrylic on canvas and measures 24″ by 36″

Imminent Deception

Imminent Deception is an image that both comes from dreams and touches on an aspect of humanity that only in the last hundred years has become reality. The merger of man and machine has become so common that we often fail to see how reliant we are on one another. Machines are built by man and yet we depend so highly on those machines that they may as well be us. This painting was done in conjunction with a sculpture that, using found objects, created an artificial arm as seen within the real arm here. Here we see the skin pulled away revealing the imminent deception that we may just become that which we now rely on.

This painting is acrylic on canvas and measures 18″ by 36″

Heaven Standing Open

Purely a surreal image and admittedly an experimental one, Heaven Standing Open represents the idea of the unknown as a surreal journey through the doors into paradise. Only the tiny figure knows what he is seeing through the distorted and twisted hand opening the afterlife to him. In a way, it represents that only each of us will know what we see in the end.

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

Envy

Envy is something everyone struggles with at one time. It is so common, they call it the green-eyed monster, a menacing term to represent that it preys on the weak. We want to possess what we can’t, we want to take it and hold it in our hands. This painting shows the green-eyed monster as just that, a part of a hand wanting to hold, always there, and always watching. This painting was done in a style so as to follow the viewer around the room, always seeing and always menacing. Currently, this painting is part of a private owner’s collection.

This painting is Acrylic on canvas, measuring 24″ by 22″

EnPassant

Here we see a journey, and not one by choice. The rough seas and simplistic, primitive figure styles represent the basic differences in the participants of this journey. The title En Passant is a phrase meaning ‘in the course of doing something else’. This is a painting that represents slavery. The journey across the sea forced on a group due to basic and primitive differences, and yet a journey that mankind learned from. The figure seen on the cross is a clear reference to Christ but is seen as a mixture of the two colors shown. This is intended to represent the acceptance and forgiveness we all should strive for no matter what our basic and primitive separations are. All struggles have beginnings and all struggles have endings, just like raging storms. The peek of sunlight in the corner of this work represents an end to struggles, an end that always comes in the course of doing something else.

This painting is Acrylic on canvas and measures 30″ by 16″

Creation

Creation is perhaps one of my oldest true surreal images on canvas and has received the most comments and critique when viewed. It represents the unformed chaos in the void before creation, the hands and feet showing the unique method of not just creating by man but shaping our lives. We all face a void when we are born and use our hands to form and shape what our lives become. We tread carefully or haphazardly with our feet, often letting our heart lead us and not being sure of the outcome. Creation shows that moment just before form is taken, where the recognizable is first seen.

This painting is Oil on canvas, completed in 2000, measuring 40″ by 40″

Apparition of Face with Hands Oyster shells

The title Apparition of Face with Hands and Oyster Shells is intentionally off the wall and very unique. This image is one purely created from the dream state, something impossible and yet imagined, making the impossible real or more correctly surreal. The face is one of either a comedic nature or a face to unbalance or intimidate. The colors are as vivid as any in my work and intended to play off the calm setting with a dramatic and tense contrast. Even the near symmetry is intended to stop the viewer in their tracks and create in each a story that goes with the image.

This painting is Acrylic on Canvas, measuring 30″ by 30″

Apokalypsis Lesu Christi

One of my only pure religious themed canvas paintings, Apokalypsis Lesu Christi is a compilation of ten different verses found in the book of Revelation. This painting is perhaps one of the most researched and purely surreal by the results of that research showing a scene of complete destruction and nightmarish creatures and disasters. Many might not look to the Bible as a source of surreal imagery, but surrealism has been around in our minds for much longer than we realize.

This painting is acrylic on canvas and measures 38″ by 30″

A Delicate Balance

Being aware of our impact on the planet is important to everyone. Finding a surreal method of portraying that responsibility, that delicate balance, is nothing easy. A Delicate Balance represents the idea that we all hold a power in our hands, the power to do nothing or to choose and try to maintain the environment we have. We can choose to simply close our hand, close our eyes, and crush what power we have, the environment around us, or we can balance and maintain as best we can.
This painting is Acrylic on Canvas, measuring 24″ by 24″