These images appear to be mundane photographs, capturing scenes that we all see in our daily lives. Jumbles of newspapers, peeling paint on a wooden gate, jars full of marbles, glass bottles shining in the sun. Look closer, and you still may not even realize that they’re not photographs after all.

Down to unimaginable details like stamped-on ‘best-by’ dates, tiny snippets of text, drops of dew and wood texture so well realized you can almost feel it, these hyper-realistic paintings by Steve Mills leave no doubt as to the talent they take to produce.

Early in his career, Mills “had collectors literally airing in line outside the gallery before an opening; creating such a frenzy, one show sold out in 10 minutes. However, with the time it takes to paint in the photorealist technique – some paintings taking over 500 hours – it has proven impossible to do more than one gallery opening a year.”

At his website, Mills not only displays dozens of these paintings, but offers high-resolution images of them that allow you to get a practically microscopic look. Even then, it’s hard to spot brush strokes or any other signs that they’ve been created with a human hand.

How would you react if you were walking down the street and happened to notice a pair of hands or a face pressed up against a ventilation grate on a wall? Getting over the initial shock of fear that someone really was trapped inside, you’d marvel at the incredible realism of these street art stickers by pioneering Brooklyn-based Dan Witz.

The artist is a trained realist painter, and his figures are stunningly lifelike. For his series ‘Ugly New Buildings‘, Witz places these tromp l’oeil figures in places where vehicles tend to bottleneck, telling SF Weekly, “People are in their cars and inching forward, and they’re like, ‘What’s that?,’ but they can’t get out and steal it because they’d be crazy to get out of their cars.”

Of the series, Witz says, “In the past few years much of my neighborhood in Brooklyn has been torn down to make way for luxury housing. For better or worse it’s a whole new street-scape out here. Personally, I can’t say I like the new modern architecture very much, it’s sterile and so arrogantly disconnected with its surroundings sometimes it seems like giant alien space ships have landed in the night.”

Dan Witz – What the %$#@? : San Francisco 2011 from Colin M Day on Vimeo.

“But, at the very least, there’s some interesting new textures and surfaces to interact with. These are photo-based, heavily re-painted stickers, mounted on plastic and glued to the walls of the Ugly New Buildings. I hit the Lower East Side and East Village in Manhattan, and Bushwick, Dumbo, Greenpoint and Williamsburg out here in Brooklyn.”

Witz, who has been covertly altering billboards and performing other “corporate vandalism” since the 1970s, appeared in Banksy’s 2010 film ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’, featuring his ‘Do Not Enter‘ sign in Brooklyn. See a selection of Witz’ art from the 1970s to today at his website, or check out his latest book, ‘In Plain View: 30 Years of Artworks Illegal and Otherwise.’

There are many immensely talented artists out there who go to great lengths to make their paintings look as realistic as possible, mimicking the nuances of three-dimensional form, texture and lighting. But it’s rare that the opposite is true – wherein an artist seeks to make reality look like a painting. Meet Alexa Meade, who paints subjects not on canvas but right on top of themselves.

Meade’s thick acrylic brushstrokes turn living subjects into exaggerated, flat, painterly versions of themselves that are so accurately rendered two-dimensional, it’s difficult to tell immediately that there’s a real person under all that pigment. When the subject’s environment is painted as well, the effect is so complete that onlookers are stunned when what looks like some kind of painted sculpture suddenly moves and breathes.

“My painting technique pushes the boundaries of perception, compressing 3D space into a 2D plane and effectively blurring the lines between art and life,” Meade told Juxtapoz in a recent interview.

“Typically, when you look at a painting, you’re looking at an artist’s interpretation of the subject painted on canvas. In my artistic interpretation of the subject, I paint directly on top of the subject I am referencing rather than using canvas. Essentially, my art imitates life – on top of life. For example, with Portrait of a Self-Portrait you are simultaneously looking at a portrait I painted of myself, a photo I took of myself, and at me.”

Meade didn’t go to art school – in fact, she graduated from Vassar College with a degree in political science. When asked if her background in politics has influenced her art, she explained slyly, “My projects spin reality.”