In this collection, Revelations: A Portrait of Magic, the Scottish artist Stuart McAlpine Miller depicts some of the wizarding world’s most popular characters, including Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and Severus Snape. Created over a period of six years, Stuart’s original oil paintings fuse Pop Art with classical influences from Caravaggio and Hieronymus Bosch in a spectral style previously described as ‘supernatural realism’ by the BBC and Radio 2 art critic Estelle Lovatt.

Through his multi-layered portraits, Stuart has explored the themes of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter stories. The ‘good versus evil’ motif can be seen in the almost transparent layers of paint. Chiaroscuro – a contrast of light and dark used by the Old Masters – adds an uncanny dimension to his work. 

This distortion plays a key part in his work: the layers of text, logos and symbols unfurl around the figures like smoke, with the abstracted imagery suggesting fragmented memories. These allegorical portraits hint at an evil force and impending disaster, as symbolised by the negative imagery, which uses an inverted colour palette to create a ghostly sense of unease. The dark forces seen in classical works by artists like Albrecht Drürer, Gustav Doré and Eugène Delacroix are given a contemporary update. 

Castle Fine Art will be donating a percentage of each painting’s sale price to the Lumos Foundation, a charity that fights for every child’s right to a family by transforming care systems around the world. To find out more, contact us.