IVYDALE, W.Va. -- In his studio in Harlem, he paints. On the farm in Ivydale, he sculpts -- but not in the usual sense. There's nothing usual about Brian Reed.

Nourished by the contrasting cacophony of New York City and the serenity of West Virginia, the 27-year-old Clay County native produces psychedelic paintings and components for elaborate, offbeat art installations with mystical themes.

His current installation at the Stifel Fine Arts Center in Wheeling features old locust fence posts from the Ivydale farm. He decorated them with objects collected since boyhood -- bottle caps, corks, corncobs, rail spikes and rattlesnake rattles, for starters.

Convinced that icons and rituals from different cultures evoke universal emotions, he draws heavily on mythology, folklore and spiritual symbolism for inspiration.

His father died when he was 17. Grief and family turmoil overwhelmed him. Later, a farm accident left him partially paralyzed for nearly a year.

Through the imagery in his art, he shares a story of optimism grounded in despair.

"I first lived in Clay and moved here to the farm when I was 7. There weren't many children my age locally, so I mostly stuck to myself and explored the countryside with my golden retriever.

"James Boggs on my mother's side was a Confederate general. He had 17 sons and daughters and gave each one a farm, and this is one of them.

"My father worked in the oil and gas industry, developing leases and properties. My mother was a nurse and did health advocacy for rural communities in Clay County.

"I wanted to be something in science, like an archeologist or anthropologist, going to far-away countries and learning about cultures and digging up dinosaur bones.

"I have a huge arrowhead collection. I would go out to the leases with my dad. They would grade soil off the ridge to make a road. When it rained, I would find all kinds of arrowheads.

"I would always walk and pick up stuff. I kept wondering what I was going to do with 10,000 shark teeth and all these seashells and fossils.

"I won my first award in a youth show at the Cultural Center. It was a painting, a Monet scene in France. I must have been 10 or 11. I was always talented in art class. I took lessons from Sandra King, a pastel landscape artist.

"I started taking art classes when I was 15. My teacher started entering me in shows and tried to help me understand that I could have a career in art.

"There is no handbook to being an artist. Each person's journey is very different, and you discover it as you go. If I couldn't do this, I would cease to be. You don't choose it; it chooses you.

"I took classical piano lessons in Charleston and developed that with my art. I went to the Governor's School for the Arts when I was 15. I went for music instead of visual arts. I really advocate that program.

"My father was killed in a car accident when I was 17. I couldn't think about anything else. There were a lot of difficult situations legally with his estate that denied us hardly any money.

"Art took over as a coping mechanism. I could spend hours working and didn't have to think about painful things.

"I had enough credits to graduate, so I stopped going to school the last half of my senior year. I really honed my talents then. My art teacher knew I was going through difficult times. She helped me prepare a portfolio for art school.

"She was very instrumental in helping me realize that the next step was for me to go to James Madison University in Virginia. It opened up a whole new world for me.

"I didn't know a soul at James Madison. I made friends slowly. Most of my time was spent in the studio. Then I would practice piano for two or three hours. It was a very inward journey. James Crable was a teacher there and a fairly famous artist. He expanded my mind into conceptual and modern art. From that, there was no holding back.

"I started using different materials and started to create from my imagination more than scenes I could see in life. It was a big transition from landscapes and portraits.

"I graduated with many awards and planned to go to New York. A week later, one of the old farms trucks was sitting on an incline and started rolling down toward people's houses. I got the door open and pushed on the brake. It didn't stop.

"I thought if I could turn it, it would coast to a stop in this field. I did get it to turn and stop, but it was a game changer in my life. I let go of the steering wheel, and the front tire ran over me. I was partially paralyzed. I had so many braces and casts on me that it was almost a full year before I could walk again.

"I read a lot and that developed my interest in culture. I would get books from the library about Inca, Aztec or West African traditions. I related to these cultural experiences in the world.

"I was at a crossroads. What did I want to do with my life? I was here in West Virginia still having trouble getting around. Plans to go to New York were a distant memory. I met Aila Accad, a life coach. She became a real instrument for change in my life.

"She started giving me reiki, an energy healing treatment, and then started coaching. All this stuff that happened was holding me back. I needed to get rid of that to see my true purpose in life.

"We began to explore that. One purpose is, I want to show people around the world that no matter where our journey has taken us, there is a common denominator that unites us. As humans, we all deal with concepts of creation, death, love, violence or sexuality, and we deal with those through ritual and culture and art.

"Images that are pre-Columbian, African, Tibetan or Christian are very different visually, but when you put them all up there, you feel the same thing. I can put that connecting energy out there, and people can investigate that for themselves.

"But how do I do that? One of the things that helped was a book by Mary Miller, a pre-Columbian scholar and teacher of art history and anthropology at Yale. I thought she could be a guide to me.

"I Googled her and called her and showed her a few of my images through e-mails. Yale has a special student status where I could go as a non-degree-seeking student to do graduate studies with her. I moved to New York City and commuted to New Haven.

"I have a studio in Harlem. I was busting my butt making art and going to galleries trying to get shows.

"My first break was a group show in a gallery. Another gallery owner gave me his card. He gave me my first solo show, the one with the naked lady that raised all the controversy.

"It was mentioned in The New York Times, Post and Village Voice and on NPR. I basically built a temple. Within the temple were altars with very reverent objects, a way you could communicate with the spirit world.

"One of the pieces was made of shark eggs, 15th-century tobacco pipes, beads and poems, sayings that are important to me. Underneath all this, completely naked, stood Megan Hanford, this creation figure.

"The police were shutting it down. We had to ask for a ruling. Is this art? Everyone started blogging about it. After that, people knew who I was. Now I am more and more making a living.

"I do my painting in Harlem during the colder months. Then I go back and forth between here and New York in the spring, summer and fall. I do sculpture here.

"New York can wreck souls. I call West Virginia home. Here, I am able to have clarity. In New York, you are bombarded by sensation. It's very hard to remain focused. So I visit West Virginia often to have that quiet time.

"The show in Wheeling features these locust posts which formed the original boundary of the farm. They've been bathed in moonlight, shaped by the rain and have a very special energy. As a fence, they formed a barrier. The works are meant to break barriers between this world and the spiritual world.

"I adorned the posts with materials I've collected. Each post is meant to collect a particular healing spiritual energy through elements collected throughout my life. It's special to me to have that exhibition here in West Virginia where a lot of the materials came from.

"Art is a tangible way of connecting people through a message of love, hope and compassion. That's what my life is about, to put out that vision and let people use it to start their own journeys and experiences. Artists are guides.

"My life is triumph over tragedy. An event can derail you, or you can make it a learning experience, examine what the meanings of life are for you and chart a course that makes your life better, the planet better and the people around you better.

"I'm thankful for all the adversity I've faced, because all the things that built up in my life have helped me get where I am.

"You have to see the positive in everything or you get overwhelmed and downtrodden. My message is the message of hope."

Reach Sandy Wells at san...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5173.

Reed's exhibit at the Stifel Fine Arts Center in Wheeling runs through Jan. 2 as part of the state Division of Culture and History's West Virginia Juried Exhibition Biennial.