BURCA TEKİN-11535024-COLOSSAL 117

Larger-Than-Life Hyperrealistic Portraits
Rendered in Graphite and Charcoal
by Arinze Stanley
Nigerian artist Arinze Stanley works with graphite and charcoal
pencils on large sheets of cartridge paper to render enormous portraits
of his subjects. Spending upwards of 200 hours on an artwork,
Stanley agonizes over the most minute details of each piece to painstakingly
capture reflections of light, droplets of sweat, or tangles of
hair.
Where some hyperrealistic artists lean towards idealized perfection,
Stanley instead focuses on pure realism, infusing portraits with a raw
sense of emotion and drama. The scale of each piece, always slightly
larger than life, adds an uncanny three-dimensional aspect.