INCREDIBLE ART!

This Joburg artist’s paintings are so realistic they look like high-resolution photographs

- MELON RADEBE

THE lush foliage swathed in glossy bin bags held together by milky masking tape looks like it’s been shot by an expert photo­grapher. But no lens other than a human eye was involved in creating this image – it’s in fact a hyper­realistic drawing created with multiple layers of acrylic paint.

The unique artwork recently won Matthew Blackburn a merit award at the 2023 Sasol New Signatures art competition. Matthew (29) created the piece, titled Suffocation, to bring awareness to the ever­growing problem of pollution and its effects on the planet.

“I wanted this artwork to touch on nature and how inefficient humans are,” he tells YOU. “Nature can break down matter and create new life whereas humans are constantly consuming and at the end of the day our waste is just piling up.”