In the same magic-realist vein as artistic giants like Salvador Dalí, M.C. Escher and Renê Margritte, Rob Gonsalves crafts elaborate and interconnected scenes that shift subtly to form remarkable illusions of dizzying depth and scale.

The 55-year-old Canadian of Portuguese descent takes settings that look ordinary at first glance, then layers and intersects them to form fantastic fictional realities. Many of his pieces tackle overlap, blurring the boundaries of natural and built environments.

Trees falling from the tree on a street form a canopy for a second, semi-secret world below. Books slowly turn into steps as they make their way around a domed library. Bricks become rooftops as children walk along a path. Skyscrapers morph into trees, blending nature and cities.

After college, Gonsalves worked as an architect and painted trompe-l’œil murals and theater sets on the side. As the popularity of his artistic works grew, he turned to painting as a profession.

“Although Gonsalves’ work is often categorized as surrealistic, it differs because the images are deliberately planned and result from conscious thought. Ideas are largely generated by the external world and involve recognizable human activities, using carefully planned illusionist devices. Gonsalves injects a sense of magic into realistic scenes. As a result, the term “Magic Realism” describes his work accurately. His work is an attempt to represent human beings’ desire to believe the impossible, to be open to possibility.”

A single, unbroken sewing thread is wrapped around a grid of carefully placed galvanized nails to bring human faces to life in stunningly intricate detail. Artist Kumi Yamashita, best known for light and shadow art, has crafted a series of portraits just as beautifully wrought as any made with more conventional media.

Entitled ‘Constellation,’ for the visual effect of the nails and thread, the series is created on wooden panels painted solid white. Thousands of small silver nails are set into the wood, and Yamashita carefully winds the thread around them, sometimes using an entire spool for a single portrait.

Based in New York City, Yamashita was born in Japan and received her Master of Fine Arts degree from Glasgow School of Art. The Constellation series continues Yamashita’s transformation of everyday materials into visually arresting images that challenge the way we perceive these items.

Hyper realistic art is stunning for a variety of reasons: it pushes the limits of skill, it’s incredibly detailed, etc, but what really elevates the style is creating something in high definition that is even brighter and more detailed than possible in life. For the casual observer, however, it’s the dissonance between looking at something that must be a photograph, and realizing it was actually created by hand that makes it jaw-dropping.

Diego Fazio

Diego Fazio is an Italian artist whose careful portraiture is notable because his subjects are active. There are few things as tough to capture withe a pen or pencil as splashing water across a human subject, but Diego does it with excellent effect in Sensazioni, the piece on the left of these examples. The top right piece is Il Silenzio Del Dolore (English: The Silence of Pain), and the bottom right image is titled Come Il Vento (English: Like the Wind). According to Diego’s DeviantArt page, he began as a tattoo artist and then decided he preferred to draw bodies rather than draw on them. If there weren’t photos of Diego working on his pieces, it would be difficult to believe they were drawn by hand. Still can’t believe it? Check out the progression here, here, and here.

Dirk Dzimirsky

Dirk Dzimirsky is not playing around. When he wants to capture a moment, he captures every miniscule detail. One can look at Dirk’s collection here (warning, some images are NSFW). In Dirk’s artist statement, he discusses why he chooses drawing over painting. He notes that drawing allows him “to create many layers over layers of lines and dots which react to each other in order to create a vibrant texture with directions and movement” and argues that this layering makes his portraits more warm and alive than a photograph would. Picture above are four of his works. Clockwise from top left: Drawn Face VI 2009, Black Sun 2011, Frozen 2010, and Breath 2010.

Paul Cadden

Paul Cadden is a Scottish born hyper realist artist whose incredibly popular art is prized for its detail and subject matter. Cadden doesn’t shy away from the gritty, and uses subjects with an incredible amount of character. In describing hyper realism on his site, and how he draws based on photographs, he hits on a point that seems to be a lesson in hyper realism, that “the virtual image becomes the living image, an intensification of the normal.” All of Paul’s work can be found on his main site paulcadden.com (some of the portraits are nude, and possibly NSFW).

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These Arent Photos 28 Examples Of Hyper Realistic Art

Annemarie Busschers is a contemporary artist from the Netherlands who creates portraits that beautifully captures the raw emotion of her subjects, often photorealistically.

Annemarie Busschers works, most of which can be found on her site here, follow similar themes of “saying goodbye to the self” (in the artist’s own words). Even when she’s setting out to to capture her subject’s emotion, the realism of her depiction gives it a photo realistic aspect. These examples show several self portraits (top right photo, and bottom).

This painting, via PulpFactor, is one of Annemarie Busscher’s earlier works, and an excellent example of the emotional realism that continues through her most recent portraits. The second image comes via Booooooom and gives a good perspective on the size of her canvases.

These Annemarie Busschers paintings are excellent examples of the amount of texture she attains with her artistry. The size of the canvas gives her room to create a landscape out of skin and facial features, creating an image that’s an incredibly clear treatment of her subject.

Found on entremundos and galeriebrandt, these pieces reveal the contrast between Annemarie’s treatments of different subjects. Each subject requires a different approach to capture their personality.

Annemarie Busschers has incredible talent that’s constantly evolving, but always sticks to one essence: that the subject will have their essence captured in whatever way serves them best.