Photorealist Sculptures

In the world of ceramics, Richard Shaw is a professor and the master of trompe l’oeil (French for “fool the eye”) sculpture, a style often associated with paintings intended to give ...

A cast acrylic sculpture titled Chin Up by American artist Marc Sijan. This sculpture is made from acrylic and portrays the upper torso of a clothed woman wearing a bandana over her free-flowing hair. Her eyes are closed and her head is tilted up as if in bliss. The sculpture is mounted on a metal rod, on a Lucite block Marc Sijan, Serbian American artist and sculptor born 1946. Known for his hyper-realistic portrait sculpture. He received his Bachelor's degree in art education from the University of Wisconsin in 1968, then went on to complete a Master of Science in Art degree three years later in 1971, undertaking an intense study of anatomy and biology. He lives and works in Milwaukee, USA. Sijan works within the tradition of figurative sculpture, but uses a modern approach. His meticulous creative process begins with the construction of a plaster mould from a live model. He then uses a magnifying glass to sculpt the interior of the mould in order to assure that each detail is super realistic and accurate, before casting the figure in resin. Realistic flesh tones are then achieved with multiple layers of oil paint and varnish, a process that takes around six months to complete. His sculptures are so life-like as to almost be on the verge of movement. He mostly depicts people that are often overlooked by our society such as blue collared workers or cleaning staff, turning the ordinary into extraordinary works of art. Sijan, a Milwaukee-based artist, carries on the tradition of a very old form, but his approach is very modern. His realism recalls the work of the Greek sculptors in its bold expression of human energy and poise. Sijan's method is distinct and exacting. First, he works from live models, to produce a negative mold in plaster, and sculpts the interior with special tools and a magnifying glass to assure accurate detail. Then, he casts the figure in a polyester resin. To achieve realistic flesh tones, Sijan applies 25 coats of paint --- and adds varnish. Sijan uses oil painting in the final stages of the work. "The goal is to achieve depth, yet translucency," he says. "It can't be flat. The chest and throat texture is different from that of the arms, legs and stomach. Facial skin differs from that on the torso." Hyperrealism is a genre of painting and sculpture resembling a high-resolution photograph. Hyperrealism is considered an advancement of Photorealism by the methods used to create the resulting paintings or sculptures. Belgian art dealer Isy Brachot coined the French word Hyperréalisme, meaning Hyperrealism, as the title of a major exhibition and catalogue at his gallery in Brussels in 1973. The exhibition was dominated by such American Photorealists as Ralph Goings, Chuck Close, Don Eddy, Robert Bechtle and Richard McLean; but it included such influential European artists as Domenico Gnoli, Gerhard Richter, Konrad Klapheck, Gottfried Helnwein and Roland Delcol. Since then, Hyperrealisme has been used by European artists and dealers to apply to painters influenced by the Photorealists. It is also called super-realism or hyper-realism and painters like Richard Estes, Denis Peterson, Audrey Flack, and Chuck Close often worked from photographic stills to create paintings that appeared to be photographs.His creations have been featured in galleries, museums and special exhibits all over the world such as the Smithsonian Museum of Modern Art in Washington, D.C, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Modern Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Delaware Art Museum, The Butler Institute of American Art And many more. Bruce Helander, the White House Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts: “Hyperrealism came into vogue in the 1970s with the works of Duane Hanson and Carole Feuerman, whose recreations of everyday people were in a class of their own. Artist John De Andrea...

Vintage trompe l'oeil nude male figure by Shozo Nagano 1928-2007. Oil on canvas, lain around board sculpture, circa 1986. Signed on verso.