Pencil Artist of the Week: Paul Cadden

We stumbled across this week’s pencil artist by chance while using StumbleUpon, and boy are we glad we did. His name is Paul Cadden, and his hyperrealistic drawings take our breath away every time we look at them.

Paul’s drawings are done in the hyperrealistic style, a style that emphasizes the details of the subject in an effort to bring out some greater truth about that subject. Paul’s subjects range from people and cityscapes to still lifes and, true to his style, each drawing contains an astounding amount of detail. It’s what Paul seeks to do with this detail, however, that caught our attention.

Paul bases each drawing off of a photograph or video still and seeks to create something new with graphite and paper. According to Paul, his drawings are “not strict interpretations of photographs, nor are they literal illustrations of a particular scene or subject.” Instead, they are “meticulously detailed to create the illusion of a new reality not seen in the original photo.” and “Intensify the normal.”

Every detail, from the wrinkles of a person’s face to the motion blur caused by a turning head, is accounted for. The result is not a simple reproduction of an image, but something entirely different. What that something is, is up for debate.