The Leader of the Sea Beasts

 Hello, my name is Robin Hextrum. I created this painting titled "Leader of the Sea Beast". When creating this work, I wanted to portray a scene full of fantasy, mythology, and wonder. I have always been fascinated by the unusual form of unicorns in Medieval and Renaissance legends with beards, strange tales and elephant toes instead of horse hooves.

This unicorn is from a painting by Martin DeVos in 1572. I also love the various beasts that came from the medieval imagination. This was a time of so much creativity because there was little hard science to delineate the scope of reality. The beast in this painting come from various medieval illustrations.

I often incorporate imagery from traditional paintings in my work to create a painted collage that takes on a new meaning. This work shows the unicorn conducting the beasts, and presumably the weather in a storming sea. I relish the sense of diving into a fantastical world with this work. This painting also references the power and beauty of the natural world around us.

I love painting water scapes. Since I grew up in a small town on the coast of California, this large ocean scene offered a way to get back to my roots swimming and surfing in the cold waters off the shores of Northern California. I wanted to stage the scene against a dark storming ocean that is both beautiful and mysterious in order to capture the creative and destructive duality inherent in this sea. 

I hope you enjoy taking in this magical scene and that it sparks a sense of wonder and imagination in your own thinking.