She IS an oil painting: Artist's amazingly detailed works of 'hyper-realistic' paintings that look like photographs

By EDDIE WRENN

She's an oil painting: Robin Eley's extraordinarily detailed work plays with reflection to portray photo-like imagery

At first glance, you think you are seeing a photo.
But peer closer and maybe - just maybe - you can see the paint-strokes that belie the fact that these are actually hyper-realistic paintings.
Each exquisitely detailed piece of work shows naked subjects wrapped in plastic foil - meaning Australian artist Robin Eley must pay close detail to each fold, each reflection, and the changing tones between plastic and flesh.

In the corner: Many of Eley's models are wrapped in plastic, allowing his attention to detail to shine through

It takes many many hours for Eley to produce a portrait, with his largest works taking five weeks apiece - working 90 hours per week.
Born in London in 1978, but raised in Australia from the age of three, the artist has been exhibited in London and New York, among others, and he has been both a runner-up and highly-recommended in the Australian Doug Moran National Portrait Prize.

Each detail by hand: Eley spends hundreds of hours making each painting as detailed as possible

Moving from commercial illustrations to portrait work a few years ago, one of his key themes is isolation, and he recently said: 'I was really thinking, getting down to the heart of what it was I wanted to say before recreating and re-imagining things that made me feel something.'

While Eley's subjects and technique suggest these are photographs, the paintings are all created stroke by stroke

Close-up: The details - from strands of hair to the plastic sheets - show extraordinary attention

Robin added: 'One of those things was the way we are experiencing isolation in the modern world.
'I'm the son of a parents who met in an overseas country neither was from.
'Mum was from China and had moved to London, isolated from her friends and family. Dad was from Adelaide. Today the isolation is different from theirs.
'We are so connected we don’t even need to connect. Modern isolation is the technology we have actively embraced.

It is very hard to see that these are not paintings: Details from the ear to each strand of hair stands out with vivid quality

'We are all on Facebook where we don’t have to ask our friends how they’re going because we can see what they’re doing.'
Cellophane is his medium for this - it is something you can see through but not feel through.
He said: 'It is a seductive existence where quantity trumps quality, where a smile is supplanted by a like button, and the accumulation of friends seems more important than our interactions with them.'

Would you crack it? At first glance, the paintings look like photographs, and it takes a close look to spot these are actually painted by hand

This is NOT a painting: Robin Eley pictured in his studio with some of his works

Dreadlocks offer the artist another way to explore his style, as does his muse's beard

Another model with long hair poses for Eley's work: Again each detail, from the torso to the shadows, provide the illusion this is real

A model looks sorrowfully out towards the viewer for another detailed painting

One last image: A back-shot shows is the intricate details of the ear and the hair-bun as one last model strikes a pose for Ely

source: dailymail

You have read this article News Update with the title She IS an oil painting: Artist's amazingly detailed works of 'hyper-realistic' paintings that look like photographs. You can bookmark this page URL http://elachelle89.blogspot.com/2012/10/she-is-oil-painting-artist-amazingly.html. Thanks!