To the naked eye, Hawaii-based artist Anna Halldin Maule’s amazing hyperrealistic oil paintings can pass off as photographs.
With their incredible detail and soft, pastel shades, her portraits of beautiful women are the very picture of femininity.
Maule collaborates with her photographer husband Tom, and the pair creates photo shoots to serve as inspiration for her paintings.
Her latest series centers around expectations of women to conform to beauty standards in a material world. “Women of today are assaulted by a continuous stream of media bytes dictating how we should look, think, and purchase. My latest paintings are part of my ‘Persona’ series and through them I explore the ‘masks’ women wear in their quest to discover their true selves.”
They are currently exhibiting at Scott Richards Contemporary Art in San Francisco til 30 August 2014.
View Maule’s works below, and consider checking out the exhibition if you’re in the area.
[via My Modern Met and My Amp Goes To 11, images via Anna Halldin Maule]