Australian artist, Joel Rea draws inspiration from nature to create hyperreal paintings that deceive our eyes. His paints extravagant scenes with his brush that leave the viewer contemplating between fantasy and reality. Internationally acclaimed for his oil paintings, Rea calls himself a ‘contemporary surrealist painter’ and often includes himself in his paintings. Rea’s work seems to move in a separate direction from contemporary art, one that is reconstructive, or Post Contemporary, as it places importance on craftsmanship and empathy. Rea’s paintings speak in a language where words are not needed at all, there need be no artspeak to accompany them to tell the viewer what is happening. The paintings speak for themselves.
