It appears that Salvador Dali's dreams often ended the same way. "Each morning when I awake," he said, "I experience again a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador Dali." Painter Kris Risto doesn't have that singular delight, but it should provide some satisfaction that, each morning, the end of his dreams is to awaken knowing he's Kris Risto. The local artist and Edinboro University of Pennsylvania graduate, whose style and imagery are boldly evocative of the surrealism movement begun in the 1920s, has another reason to celebrate with his current one-man exhibit at the Erie Art Museum Frame Shop Gallery. "The End of All Dreams" is on display until July 11. Surrealism makes use of imagery from the subconscious mind to create art without any intent of providing logical comprehensibility. Risto is certainly carrying that banner. This collection of acrylic works celebrates the dream state and the art that can be inspired by it. "I want the viewer to experience a sensation similar to the confused moment of uncertainty just before waking at the end of all dreams," he said. Eyes are apt to peer out of the paintings, but not necessarily as features on a face. They are hidden among a never-ending line of bloody soldiers in "14 Eyes for 14,000." They float in the surf as an alien-looking humanoid rises from the waves in "The Oceans Made Me," and a single one surveys a pastoral hillside in "Over Thee." One of the more Dali-esque pieces may be "Sleep My Friend," in which a giant hand drips dreams on a solitary reclining figure. "The Fall of Man," for all its religious allegory, is pretty literal in execution; the figure in the foreground seems to swim in a grassy field as tiny bodies fall from the sky in the distance. The Christian symbolism continues in works like "Vanish," where a grass figure in a Christ-like pose shoots beams of light and smoke from his verdant body, and in "Jesus Online," featuring a crucifixion on a telephone pole. I sensed no sacrilege in this piece, only frustration with what we worship and how. Throughout, Risto's works skies crackle with clouds of energy, rays and orbs of light pulsate and pierce, giant butterflies stand guard, and unrecognizable, often solitary figures pass through lonely landscapes that could be prehistoric or post-apocalyptic but which always convey a pervasive sense of otherworldliness. Risto has said that a recent move into the country is responsible for many of the more bucolic elements in his newer paintings. "The landscape seeped into my subconscious," he said, "and for the first time in my life I began to paint it. Not pure landscapes devoid of human presence, but landscapes that serve as mystic backdrops for my characters -- figures from the past, present, and (possibly) future." But don't think there aren't examples of personality and more personal statements. Risto has painted four pieces featuring his grandparents; his Balkan heritage is evident in his use of the terms "Dedo" and "Baba" for these obviously important figures in his life. And one of the more politically charged pieces is "Europe or Europa?" in which a barbed wire fence separates a green meadow, a distant church, and a boy holding a Macedonian flag from a scorched, desolate countryside and the resistance fighter who's pulling that wire down. Many of the works of art we see are fantastic; Risto's are literally so, filled with mystery and wonder. The dreams may end, but the possibilities persist.