For more than 20 years, Ralston Cyrus (@ralicyrus) has worked in what author Steven Pressfield calls a “shadow profession,” building a career as a user experience and software product designer in fast-paced agency and IT environments. Yet since childhood, he has been pulled toward something quieter and more essential: a human-centered artistic practice. Cyrus creates introspective portrait and figure works that reflect a long-held desire for simplicity, honesty, and inner clarity. Over the past decade, his work has been exhibited throughout the DMV and East Coast. His drawings and paintings aim to reveal the subtle truths within his subjects—still, contemplative moments that mirror his own search for peace. Through his work, Cyrus echoes the universal hero’s journey: the challenge of returning to one’s true self and honoring the creative spark that endures beneath every detour.
Dopamine Dreams extends the inquiry of my past exhibits, shifting from the quiet observation of human form to an exploration of the internal chemistry that shapes our notion of the divine and inner drives toward fulfillment. These portraits and figures explore the threshold between physical sensation and spiritual experience, where perhaps dopamine becomes both messenger and gatekeeper—an unseen current guiding desire, attention, memory, and the pursuit of meaning.
Rendered in moments of stillness and chaos, each subject hovers between the tangible world and an inner, dreamlike plane. By pairing visceral human presence with subdued, atmospheric and astral spaces, the work invites viewers to consider how our physical minds influence our notion of transcendence. Dopamine Dreams asks whether enlightenment is a state we reach, or a transient shimmer we learn to notice.