Photorealism
An Introduction of Photo Realistic Art - 8/19/2010
By. D. Arredondo
Photorealism is a form of painting which the artist, aka Photo realists, uses a variety of tools to achieve an almost photo like outcome of art. As a photorealism artist I began creating realistic art as a kid without fully understanding its true significance.
I recall drawing portraits of photographs off my favorite magazines and including detail from my imagination to ensure that my paintings were indeed original. My choice of art tools were, and still are, oil based color pencils and oil pastels. As I progressed in my art talent, so did the realism of my paintings. I would spend weeks, if not months fine pointing every detail of my paintings.
I have always been obsessed with perfection and detail. Even the slightest imperfection would cause me to destroy my painting and start from scratch until I achieved the perfection I want. As the years passed I was able to afford a much better quality set of art tools. I currently use a professional grade Canon camera to photograph people in a variety of poses. I want each of my paintings to express a theme of importance and significance.
After taking a photo I like, I begin by sketching it onto an illustration board and adding unique details.
The paintings featured on this page are two of my recent paintings, "Cherry Lull Fandango" and "Aztec Autumn". My idea for creating Cherry Lull Fandango was to express the human weakness of temptation. The Cherry represents the tempting fruit of all evil and its bounding nature.
I created "Aztec Autumn" to illustrate the dead Aztec culture and the more dominant European way of life. I decided that a woman, the bearer of all children, would best represent my perception of the Aztec culture as a whole. The depiction of her French manicure and brassiere (an invention created in the seventh century BCE in the Minoan era), was intended to illustrate the influence the European culture had on indigenous people.
As for the word "Photorealism", it was first used in 1969 by photorealist artist Louis K. Meisel in 1969 and first emerged in print in 1970 in a Whitney Museum catalogue.
In conclusion, Photorealist paintings could not have existed without the photograph and my "Cherry Lull Fandango" and Aztec Autumn" creations would have never been created without my Canon E40 camera.
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Key words - Photorealism, photo realistic art, realistic art, aztec art, photography, Louis K. Meisel, The Introduction of Photorealistic art, Definition of Photorealism