"But can he paint minis?" Topic

These are CRAZY acrylic paintings!
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At first, I thought they were pics… NOPE!

Unbelievable. I could distinguish a few from photographs, mostly because of unusual elements in how he depicted liquid, but only in one (the blossoming branch) could I definitely say "that part looks painted." Granted, I'm viewing on an iPad2, so some definition is lost. But even so, his skill and attention to detail are impressive.

So… he paints pictures based on photos… why? It would be interesting to see the original photo and then the artwork, to see what he changed.

The artist has some incredible skills. Reminds me a bit of Estes paintings.
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He says why in the article.
But one can also extrapolate an interest in exploring what the human eye sees and perceives of as "real" versus what it perceives of as "fabricated." Even the great masters never achieved the creation of a painting that at first glance appears real to the viewer. Of course, they weren't for the most part trying to do so; after all, the concept of a photograph did not exist. So a painting was inherently known to be fabricated and "not real" to any viewer, and the impulse for the artist thus was indeed to be "artistic" in interpreting what he saw and what message he was trying to convey, rather than create a true reflection of a scene. The closests moments to "real" imagery we see in older works are typically when an artist is painting a reflection and wants to "get the look" of glass or water or polished metal "right." Other moments, are of course the trompe l'oeil efforts, but even these are rarely convincing.
But here the artist has recreated the photograph, which we inherently see as "real," yet has in fact created something that is "not real" at all. I'll be interested to see how he develops this further, and whether he tries to create scenes and sequences which are inherently unreal with his "real" techniques. I suspect he's headed that way.

On a side note, I'd like to see this approach by a fantasy artist— I'd love to see a painting of a dragon that looked like a photograph of an actual beast. I've certainly never encountered one that achieved it convincingly.

Those are wonderful!

The artist has removed all reflections of the camera or viewer persona from the painting. Those images are not physically possible but he has interpreted the base photo to a fantasy version where the invisible viewer is looking at something and seeing all the reflections except no reflection of themselves. So maybe he is he a vampire…….

Very skill-full, but I find them a tad dull.

Hyperrealism at work

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