Alyssa Monks

Artist creates incredible paintings that look like photographs.

An artist has created a stunning set of aquatic portraits which look just like photographs.
At first glance, you could be forgiven for believing that these images look like an intimate set of snapshots caught by the photographer at exactly the right time.
However, these touching shower scenes were not captured by a camera – but amazingly painted by the hand of a New York artist. Applying paintbrush to canvas, Alyssa Monks pays mind-boggling attention to detail to create them.

And the 31-year-old, who has insisted that she uses no tools in her paintings, has boasted that her creations look even more life-like than photographs.
In one picture, a girl peeps out from inside a steamed up shower and peers into the camera lens.
And in another, a woman wearing a bikini floats effortlessly under water, showing off her recently engaged finger.
Alyssa said: ‘I have always wanted to paint for as long as I can remember.
‘I took classes at school and then went to college and University before ending up at the New York Academy of Art.’
‘The girl in most of the pictures is myself. I have used my own image many times because I do not have to worry about issues of self-consciousness that might arise with models.’
‘However, I have been exploring the faces of family and friends recently too, I prefer to work with people that I know personally and have a relationship with.’
‘The paintings are very intricate and they take a lot of work to get right. It is all about the desire to try and create an image of a person that is realer than real, beyond what even a photograph can portray.’
‘I look for the “imperfect” details, and try to display how beautiful the real is, rather than the ideal. I think it is often my willingness to let go of my own expectations of the body that allows me to capture the interesting surprises about the face and body.’

Alyssa takes about 1,000 pictures for a small series of paintings, using the images to play with the colour and get the paintings as real as possible.
And artist is in demand currently showing at a prestigious exhibition at the National Academy Museum in New York.
Plans are also afoot for an exhibition at the Kunst Museum Ahlen in Germany and a museum show at the Noyes Museum in New Jersey next summer.
Alyssa, who admires American abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock, is now experimenting with distorted figures pressed against glass in her work. She said: ‘I use the photographs I take to help me compose and play with the colour, although I invent a lot of the water and steam effects from memory.’
‘I use lots of different materials to get such realistic images, but nothing out of the ordinary, there are no special tools to achieve these kinds of results.’
‘The picture I am currently working on is always my favourite, but the work I most admire is Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm, I just get lost in it. I am excited for my exhibitions in the future and I am currently exploring the effect of figures pressed against glass.
‘The steam and water works to distort the figure – I am always looking for new filters all the time.’

By Daily Mail Reporter.

Read her Bio and website.