Vero Beach, Florida.- The Vero Beach Museum of Art is proud to present “Beyond Reality: Hyperrealism and American Culture”, on view at the museum from Feburary 5th through May 13th. The show will include works of art that are closely associated with the concept of photo-realism and ultra-illusionistic paintings and sculpture that add an expressive dimension to the viewer’s understanding of realism. The works of art will make the viewer aware of the breadth of subject matter and varying styles that have been explored in hyperrealist painting and sculpture since the 1970’s. The exhibition will demonstrate the historical connections between contemporary hyper-realism and Courbet’s concept that “Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it.”
The term “hyperrealism” was first used by art dealer Ivan Karp and some of his contemporaries around 1970. Other art critics have often used the term ‘photorealism’ or ‘New Realism’ at the same time. However, hyperrealsim can include photorealism as well as other highly detailed styles of realism. It is also a term that can be applied to sculpture, as in the work of Duane Hanson and Marc Sijan. Nearly all hyperrealist painters have used photographs for reference, but some, such as Richard Estes and Robert Bechtle, seem to retain more of the look of a photograph in their work. John Baeder and Davis Cone also work from photographs, but they subtly manipulate or exaggerate what was present in their reference photos. The Hyperrealist style focuses much more of its emphasis on details and the subjects. Hyperreal paintings and sculptures are not strict interpretations of photographs, nor are they literal illustrations of a particular scene or subject. Instead, they utilize additional, often subtle, pictorial elements to create the illusion of a reality which in fact either does not exist or cannot be seen by the human eye. Furthermore, they may incorporate emotional, social, cultural and political thematic elements as an extension of the painted visual illusion; a distinct departure from the older and considerably more literal school of Photorealism.
Hyperrealist painters and sculptors make allowances for some mechanical means of transferring images to the canvas or mold, including preliminary drawings or grisaille underpaintings and molds. Photographic slide projections or multi media projectors are used to project images onto canvases and rudimentary techniques such as gridding may also be used to ensure accuracy. Sculptures utilize polyesters applied directly onto the human body or mold. Hyperrealism requires a high level of technical prowess and virtuosity to simulate a false reality. As such, Hyperrealism incorporates and often capitalizes upon photographic limitations such as depth of field, perspective and range of focus. Anomalies found in digital images, such as fractalization, are also exploited to emphasize their digital origins by some Hyperrealist painters, such as Chuck Close, Denis Peterson, Bert Monroy and Robert Bechtle. Subject matter ranges from portraits, figurative art, still life, landscapes, cityscapes and narrative scenes. The more recent hyperrealist style is much more literal than Photorealism as to exact pictorial detail with an emphasis on social, cultural or political themes. This also is in stark contrast to the newer concurrent Photorealism with its continued avoidance of photographic anomalies.
Hyperrealist painters at once simulate and improve upon precise photographic images to produce optically convincing visual illusions of reality, often in a social or cultural context. Some hyperrealists have exposed totalitarian regimes and third world military governments through their narrative depictions of the legacy of hatred and intolerance. Hyperreal paintings and sculptures further create a tangible solidity and physical presence through subtle lighting and shading effects. Shapes, forms and areas closest to the forefront of the image visually appear beyond the frontal plane of the canvas; and in the case of sculptures, details have more clarity than in nature. Hyperrealistic images are typically 10 to 20 times the size of the original photographic reference source, yet retain an extremely high resolution in color, precision and detail. Many of the paintings are achieved with an airbrush, using acrylics, oils or a combination of both. Ron Mueck’s lifelike sculptures are scaled much larger or smaller than life and finished in incredibly convincing detail through the meticulous use of polyester resins and multiple molds. Bert Monroy’s digital images appear to be actual paintings taken from photographs, yet they are fully created on computers.
The Vero Beach Museum of Art is located at 3001 River Park Drive, Vero Beach, Florida. It houses regional, state and national art exhibits and includes a sculpture garden. The Vero Beach Museum of Art is the principal cultural arts facility of its kind on Florida’s Treasure Coast. The accredited art museum includes art exhibitions, a sculpture garden, studio art and humanities classes, exhibition tours, performances, a museum store, film studies, an art research library, workshops and seminars, children and youth events, and community cultural celebrations. Since 1991, the Vero Beach Museum of Art has been recognized by the State of Florida and the Florida Arts Council as a significant cultural establishment through grant awards and support. The Museum was awarded accreditation from the American Association of Museums in April 1997. It became recognized for its professionalism, quality of programming, exhibitions, and community outreach. The Museum was reaccredited in April 2007. In 2002, the Museum’s Board of Trustees voted to change the institution’s name from the Center for the Arts to the Vero Beach Museum of Art, which went into effect on July 1, 2002. In February 2007, the Museum added the Alice and Jim Beckwith Sculpture Park, which is 1.12 acres (4,500 m2), to its exhibition spaces. The permanent collection of the museum includes ofer 880 works of art and is currently concentrated primarily on American art. however, the museum is also growing its international holdings in the area of contemporary art. Amongst the artists included in the collection are Milton Avery, Romare Bearden, Charles Bellows, Charles E. Burchfield and sculptures by Deborah Butterfield. Visit the museum’s website at … http://www.verobeachmuseum.org