Burning Desire

She saw straight through the polished mask I’d spent years perfecting in the mirror - the careful, guarded version I sold to the world. And I saw her the same: the raw, unguarded self she kept locked behind quick subject changes and deliberate silences. Neither of us had any intention of letting someone in this deep after the wreckage of our pasts we’d survived. Our inner punk kept screaming don’t soften - a private rebellion that held the whole damn world at arm’s length. But those quiet nights rewrote the rules. Her eyes locked on mine and refused to let go. The old instinct to flinch kicked in… and I didn’t look away. She didn’t deflect when the questions cut personal. Every crack in our paper armor let in more light, and once the light touched those hidden places, there was no sealing them shut again. We were daring each other to stay - to let the paper armor catch fire and burn away until the real skin underneath finally showed itself unapologetic in the light.

That’s exactly what this piece is about: the raw essence of a love that refuses compromise - an anarchic bond that liberates rather than confines. The lovers, bound in paper-mâché armor, ignite flames that peel away their defenses, revealing the vulnerable, authentic selves beneath. In that exposure, love becomes rebellion, stripping the masks worn to survive and laying bare what’s been hidden for so long. Their surreal, long tongues intertwined - a symbol of fears overcome and now fused in love. Scattered through the background, punk quotes and imagery echoed our mental landscape - the constant internal monologue that rejected our inner fear. Framing it all, the sunset with piercing rays turns what could feel harsh into something romantic in the punkest sense.

If fear had won, we'd remain strangers to ourselves and each other. Never silence the inner punk - it’s the only path to the love that refuses to compromise. .

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Stolen Kiss

My first real kiss happened right against the front window of a restaurant. Everyone inside eating could see us. I was too young to know what I was doing, and it came so suddenly my mind didn’t even have time to catch up. I’d imagined kisses from movies. Effortless. This was the opposite: nervous, clumsy, teeth and noses colliding. We kept breaking apart because we couldn’t stop laughing, the sound muffled against each other’s mouths. Between the laughs, we played this quiet, ridiculous game. Mid-sentence one of us would lean in and steal the last word with a kiss. It felt silly in the best way, like we’d stumbled onto something private and entirely our own. Nothing was graceful about it, but that unguarded mess made it feel real. Afterward, I replayed the whole thing endlessly in my mind. A small secret we’d just uncovered together.

Even now, years later, a kiss still feels stolen in the gentlest way. Unexpected, like a quiet gift. It might come mid-sentence, turning ordinary talk into something intimate. When lips meet and everything narrows to warmth and breath, nothing else is there. Each time brings that familiar soft tingle, a spark of childlike joy that lights up inside, no matter how old I get.

That’s the feeling I wanted to hold onto in “Stolen Kiss” The title comes from the same quiet disbelief I still get. A moment so vivid it feels slightly unreal. To do it, I mixed abstract digital painting with photorealistic elements. Dreamlike brushstrokes dissolve into lifelike people, the way a kiss can feel both physical and a little unreal. Two bodies, but the feeling drifts somewhere closer to a dream. In the middle of smoke and rushing trains and wanted posters peeling from the walls, these two figures take a quiet moment together, simple and unguarded. Worth every clumsy risk.

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Life Is A Carnival Ride

Society could collapse tomorrow - aliens finally landing, lasers carving up the skyline - and I’d still be standing there, mid-shower, wondering: Did I soap both armpits, or did I just zone out again? Just like the main character in the art piece: blank stare, completely detached while the carnival erupts around her. We share the same permanent half-state: one foot sunk in daydream, the other dragging through whatever this reality pretends to be. Starting every morning already drowning in self-absorbed nonsense is exhausting. Maybe it’s not sparks of creativity. Maybe I’ve quietly gone crazy. (They say the truly insane never suspect a thing - so that’s comforting.) That same restless uncertainty in my mental state is mirrored in her tattoos: in the artwork, they come to life as animated figures acting out inner conflicts, turning static ink into a vivid symbol of how nothing inside the mind ever stays certain for long.

I wake up already pissed off. Impressive, considering nothing’s happened yet. That alone should qualify as a talent. Step outside: same kid licking the same pole, different day, zero evolution. I see it. I’m not blind. I just don’t engage. Headphones on, no music - just silence as my only reliable force field against the rest of humanity. That same desperate armor shows up in her tattoos: the black flies swarm - decaying thoughts and intrusive ideas that have escaped her mind. No break from the brain. Ever. And just like my headphones try to block the world, “MOM” and “DAD” rise small from her arm ink, trying to protect her from the flies (bad thoughts).

I move through life like this: weird shit everywhere, people losing their minds in slow motion, reality doing backflips in the background - yet the buzzing never lets up, so I retreat deeper into my private mental studio apartment with blank walls. A huge, stupid smile spreads across my face. Life’s a boxing match I never agreed to. (Shown by the red boxing tape on her gloves and the red marks scattered across her body—paint splatters... or blood?) I duck the punches from reality while everyone else lines up for the carnival ride like it’s the main event - welcome to the carnival nobody requested but everybody paid full price to enter. I stay in my own world with my rules. That’s how you don’t get sick: stop fighting the spin. Lean into it. Laugh when it jerks sideways, smile through the dizziness - because stopping isn’t an option.

Life imitates art.

And the carnival never closes.

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Drugs, Prayers, and Distractions

This work is a cracked mirror held up to the world I’m breathing in - the one where I’m standing on the edge of my own sanity, watching everyone else step cheerfully off the cliff ahead of me. The Matrix reality-versus-illusion argument is dead. Most people would rather stay blissfully plugged in. We’ve slipped into a full-blown Twilight Zone episode where the patients overpowered the orderlies and now the lunatics are running the asylum. My work isn’t speculating about some dystopian tomorrow. It’s the present, exactly as it hits - waiting for the next distraction, coping mechanism, or ritual to drip-feed a sense of purpose.

Everyone looks stripped down and slightly feral to me, piecing together their mental health like a jigsaw puzzle missing half the pieces. They rummage through the spiritual flea market - black cats, shattered mirrors, vision boards, astrology apps - desperate for anything that feels like a cheat code to meaning. It isn’t faith. It’s panic-shopping for hope.

This is why I created the figures dancing around the fire in symbolic ceremony. Each glowing symbol lifts into the dark like a prayer tossed upward with crossed fingers. When the spiritual mall closes for the night, the coping mechanisms take over. The main character smokes an opium pipe, releasing purple smoke that stands in for every form of escape. Drugs. Alcohol. Food. Netflix. Binge. Relax. All of it aimed at the same thing - softening the weight of staying conscious. None of it is joy. It’s just trying to survive another night without taking the full hit of being awake.

Beyond the main character, the background moves into extremes. Protesters stand holding picket signs where blunt contradictions are left naked. Beneath a bleeding goat, two dolls drink its blood like communion wine. It’s my exaggerated artist statement of what the world looks like when fear overrides reason and belief hardens into obsession.

Created through layered digital collage, photographic manipulation, AI generation, and meticulous lighting passes, this work confronts the seductive numbness of consumption culture, the commodification of pain and outrage, and the hollow prayers we offer just to make it through another day. Making the piece became its own coping mechanism - binging time inside the work from the moment I wake until I fall asleep, giving myself a pause, a breath in and out, a brief release from the noise. Decadent apathy wrapped in vibrant, unsettling beauty.

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The Cult of Summer

I can’t stand summer. It rolls in like a grim reaper with a tan, swinging humidity and sunshine like a meat cleaver. The air turns thick, sticky - like breathing through a mold-rotted rag - and suddenly everyone’s joined a cult of sun worshippers, chanting the gospel of “good vibes” under that leering, golden stare. Warm weather isn’t a mood for me; it’s an insane asylum. Stepping into the humidity is like wading through a swamp of regret, my skin screaming in revolt. People gush about escaping winter’s chill, but my soul wilts at the first daisy’s bloom. No reverse sun lamp can trick my brain into craving crisp, overcast days - I’m trapped in this oven season, stewing in sweat-soaked dread.

The real sting is the isolation. Summer’s a sacred festival, and if you don’t buy the hype, you’re the glitch. Friends squint at me like I’m broken when I ditch their picnics or lake days, pushing “give it a chance” like an intervention ambush. As if UV rays could rewire my brain. I’m not defective - I just don’t find joy in roasting alive while forcing a grin. Your melanoma trail run is my personal hell; I’d rather barricade myself indoors, tweaking a recipe or lost in a book, the A/C purring at a glorious 62 degrees.

While you’re chasing tans, turning into leather handbags and mosquito buffets at your eerie picnic, I’ll be here, shades drawn, sipping iced coffee like it’s liquid sanity, counting down to autumn. Don’t stop inviting me - I want to hang - but pitch a dim coffee shop over a sweltering barbecue. I’d rather not bleed sweat onto my plate or fend off sunburns and bugs. Summer might be your holy season, but for me, thriving is cooler, darker, and entirely my own.

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Dear Emptiness

I write this, though it hurts to do so. We’ve been inseparable for too long, and yet I feel suffocated by your presence. You’ve taken up more space than I have to give. I need a little time apart, even if just briefly.

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SHED YOUR SKIN

"Shed Your Skin" is a tapestry of storytelling and symbolism, woven with hope and defiance. I am Surreal24seven, born in the vibrant pulse of New York City, where its rhythmic energy and beauty shaped my soul. But life shattered when my father’s factory - our family’s livelihood - was violently seized by thieves in Guatemala. Stranded, I survived on $2 an hour working in a hostel, confined to a cockroach-infested room the size of a closet, its faint WiFi my only lifeline. For six years, I didn’t leave that windowless space, strangers drifting past like shadows. There, in isolation, art became my rebellion - a surreal cry against a world that tried to break me.

"Shed Your Skin" mirrors my story in a woman whose skin bears butterfly and caterpillar tattoos - each etched line a wound of survival, a map of rebirth. She sits in a glass box, echoing my years of seclusion, her laptop casting a soft glow of plans for a new life in Chicago. Suitcases beneath her pulse with the promise of that move - a chapter yet to unfold. A cat on her lap, fierce and untamed, embodies the spirit that defies confinement.

Outside, a restless street hums with strange, unfamiliar faces - a world I’ll need time to navigate after years alone. Billboards flare with surreal visions - snakes coiling into new forms, butterflies weaving a woman’s dress, their vivid imagery murmuring transformation, urging her onward. Above, a vast starry sky unfurls, its shimmering expanse a beacon of hope beyond her walls.

A surreal anthem, echoing the relentless fight to reclaim one’s life and hope - for those rebuilding from ruin. It’s about confinement, yes - but more about escape. "Shed Your Skin" reminds us: even in the darkest box, transformation is possible. And sometimes, that spark of change is all we need to begin again!!!!

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She’s Got Sole

"She’s Got Sole" springs from the intersection of necessity, creativity, and humor. When new shoes were out of reach, my worn sneakers - toes poking through their holes - became a symbol of endurance and unexpected inspiration. This piece reimagines that daily struggle as a surreal, spirited celebration of making do.

Through collage, photography, and digital painting, I meticulously captured the essence of my weathered sneakers, adding hand-painted details and layering AI-generated tattoos - playful designs and cheeky phrases that bring a rebellious, lighthearted voice to the foot. The background pulses with life - a collage crafted in Photoshop with AI-generated elements and graffiti phrases like “Sole Mate” and “Walk a Mile,” painted in vivid pinks and reds, evoking a cityscape alive with tension and triumph.

"She’s Got Sole" invites you to find beauty in adversity, transforming the ordinary into a story of resilience and imagination. It stands as a tribute to how creativity can take bold steps forward, even when the path is worn and humble.

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Playing With the Dead

At first glance, this piece feels chaotic, surreal, cartoonish – but like a memory, it’s layered. This is a story about a memory – about the ghosts we’re told to bury becoming the ones who shape us. A quiet opera for the emotionally maimed.

In junior high, I met an older girl – let’s call her TB. We were young and foolish, which is to say: perfect. Our connection was innocent – two kids slamming into each other’s loneliness. We filled the empty spaces with cigarettes, belly-laughs, and endless conversations. The kind of words that melt hours, that stitch you into someone else’s breath. Jane Says droned on her battered cassette deck – our unofficial anthem. The soundtrack to dirty mall pizza, ashtray afternoons, and the reckless hope only adolescence can invent. Like all beautiful things cursed by youth, it didn’t last.

My parents sat me down – “She’s unstable,” they said. “You’re forbidden from seeing her!” Forbidden? What a delicious word. What is this, freakin’ medieval times? I wasn’t their plow mule chained to the family crest. So I turned my speakers into gravestones and cranked Jane Says till the cones bled – played it for a year straight. Loud enough to make the walls remember her, even if no one else would.

In the artwork, the central figure – myself – is cracked like shattered glass, each fracture tracing the loss of connection. Inside, fish swim through murky, memory-filled waters I’ll never drain – symbols of emotion left unspoken, still drifting. That grief shaped me, and it shaped the art. Later, as the years thickened and I became the kind of man who walks with his eyes half-closed, I kept chasing her shadow in the bodies of other women, trying to prove something – to my parents, to myself: See? She wasn’t a monster. That struggle bleeds through the piece. Caution tape snakes across the scene like a crime scene – like a warning, though memory doesn’t obey. Bubblegum bubbles conceal sad faces. Neon graffiti whispers Remember Me, while teddy bears float with Xs for eyes. A quiet “fuck you” to anyone who asks if I’m okay. And behind the main character, a young cartoon version of me stares out, wide-eyed and broken, forever marking the moment I was forced to let TB go.

When I say I’m playing with the dead, I don’t mean ghosts. I mean the younger version of me who never got to say goodbye.

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Neon Diaries

Neon Diaries is a visual metaphor - every artwork I create is born from a personal story, much like ink spilled in a private journal. But unlike hidden pages, my art lays bare my deepest thoughts for all to see. In Neon Diaries, she is surrounded by floating electric monitors. Each glowing screen reveals a distinct futuristic journal entry - a metaphor for the way all my artwork tells stories. And this piece, in particular, explains how I came to that style of creating.

Los Angeles was my cage at 32 - a hollowed-out wreck clawing through a divorce that carved me raw. I woke with too many teeth clenched, like I’d been chewing glass in my sleep. My insides screamed like a kid locked in a hot car. Fraud. Failure. Not enough. My digital canvases became battlegrounds - surreal fever dreams where I bled jagged truths too sharp for words. Not with brushes, but with wounds. Each piece a confession, a cracked map through my madness, glowing like a pulse in the dark.

Then life tore the frame apart. I was ripped from LA’s neon hum and dropped into the sweating, broken heart of Guatemala - a backwater hell that stank of sour earth and lost hope, where every alley felt like a trap. I’d crammed my life into a storage unit: grainy VHS tapes of birthdays and first loves, dog-eared photos from better days, my mother’s things - recipes scrawled on napkins, coffee-stained journals, Spanish textbooks laced with her penciled notes, like soft whispers trying to reach me. She was torn from me in my late 20s, taken in a violent, shattering way I still don’t speak about. Those scraps were my last hold on her.

Then came the call. A freak accident. A cruel twist. The unit - gone. Erased. Losing it was like watching her die again. In Guatemala, I was an uninvited permanent visitor, stranded in a language I didn’t speak, drowning in cheap whiskey and rage that burned like fever. Grief didn’t arrive like a poem. It came like a riot.

One night - half-drunk, half-dead - I cracked open a crate of dusty old laptops. And there she was. In the neon glow of a ‘98 digital piece, her smirk sliced through the dark like a knife. In a warped figure from ’99, I heard her humming - off-key, over a pan of burnt meatloaf. Every surreal pixel pulsed with her: the late-night talks while she meal-prepped, her laugh - loud, reckless, enough to light up a room. I’d been painting her all along. Not to escape the pain - but to keep her breathing.

Like this story, I can transform myself back in time without photos or videos - just by looking at an older piece of work. Neon Diaries expresses those ideas in an abstract, surreal way. Each screen, each image, each color is a timestamp burned in memory - a way back

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STEP ONE

I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it - Thomas Jefferson

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SUPERRARE - 1/1 DIGITAL ART BY SURREAL24SEVEN

One-of-one digital works on SuperRare, using symbolism to shape real experiences into visual stories