One might be forgiven for thinking these incredible pictures are photographs, but they are in fact the work of a British artist Darren Reid who paints street scenes that look like the real thing. His style of work is known as contemporary realism and originates from a line drawing of a photograph and then is painstakingly painted.
This particular painting “the things we leave behind” is concerned with that point between ‘what was’ and ‘what will be’. The expanse of sky above the rubble represents the void of the building that has been demolished, the figures are for narrative the title will make the viewer think about what is left behind and forgotten in creating opportunity for progress, that in constructing the new we inevitably have to deconstruct the old.
Reid wanted to capture the destruction generated by the rapid development happening in his local environment. In painting, the technical rigor required to render a realistic image demands a concomitantly higher level of attention from the viewer; it calls for a deeper engagement with the subject matter at hand. And even though the current fad in contemporary painting encourages more abstract forms, the interest Reid’s work has garnered thus far indicates that skill is still an appreciated quality in art.
Reid’s process is simple but laborious. He begins by taking a number of photographs of scenes and landscapes that are familiar to him, and then selects the image that he finds most technically challenging. In the process of making Before the Storm (2015), for example, Reid meticulously outlined every detail in the image before he painted it, and the result is a picture-perfect depiction of a harbour in Brixham, uncanny in its photographic quality.
The question Reid faces is this: Why create paintings identical to photographs when he could paint from imagination? For Reid, his painting practice might be labelled as photorealist, but his interpretation of the images he chooses to paint has a narrative quality not always prevalent in photographs.
Keep up with Darren’s work online: @darrenreidpaintings
Sources:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2852124/British-artist-Darren-Reid-paints-street-scenes-look-just-like-real-thing.html
http://www.dailyserving.com/2016/01/fan-mail-darren-reid/
Picture from:
http://www.plusonegallery.com/artists/199-darren-reid/works/2244/
macrography 