Summertime

Hilo Chen, Beach 163, 2009

You wouldn’t know by looking outside but apparently it’s summertime… To make up for the lack of sunshine here’s some great paintings by American artist Hilo Chen. At first I thought these were photos, shot or manipulated to give them that super-saturated 70s look, but they’re hyper-real paintings. The colours, texture and details are amazing.

The images all focus on women on the beach and while one or two are a little overt, I think the overall feeling of voyeurism is tempered with an honesty of acknowledging  that sunkissed women in bikinis are attractive… Also the viewer wants to examine the painterly detail and not just look like a perv ogling women in bikinis. You can check out some more paintings here.