Tim Solliday’s paintings do not lend themselves to easy categorization. Clicking through the slides on his website once, twice, a couple dozen times, my eyes linger on the expressive faces, the light-drenched landscapes. Are these works realistic? Well, no, not exactly. No human eyes have ever been that wise or that kind. No natural light is quite so warm and inviting. I’m not looking at reality; I’m looking at something with more beauty and more potential for magic than mere prosaic reality.

I find myself looking to literature instead, where there’s a term that feels close to apt: magical realism, that genre of fiction in which the world exists as it really exists—mostly. But the fantastical waits around every corner, often just out of frame.

Tim Solliday

Majestic Hilltop
Oil
36″x36″
“In this piece, I wanted to fill most of the picture with the figure and horse. It was important to show the figure on a kind of hilltop, thereby having an inspiring view of the poplars and distant mountains.

Tim Solliday

Peaceful Pastures
Oil
24″x30″
“A cowboy and his dog always make for a good Western subject. The pastures show the cattle at rest, thereby this title, which speaks for itself.”