Who painted these photographs?

Mumbai: Italian hyperrealism artist, Diego Koi’s images of people and their portraits have details that highlight the subject’s emotions and their inner-mind. But when you come to know how they were made, you will be surprised. Although the images look like photographs, they are actually hand drawn paintings by Diego.

According to Viral Nova, Diego specialises in making these hyper-realistic images where he attempts to create works that look like a high-resolution photograph. Diego calls himself a freelance and self-taught artist. The 22-year-old, uses only pencils to make his images and is inspired by artists like Caravaggio and Katsushika Hokusai among others. In the year 2011, Diego won the best new artist award from the Italian government.

Diego began drawing in 2007 and was a tattoo artist before he started drawing, yet his hyperrealistic pencil drawings on paper and wood have garnered international acclaim for him. Each portrait can take up to 200 hours but the results speak for themselves. Diego’s art is so realistic that it can easily be mistaken for a real photograph. Hyper-realism artists usually use only pencils or markers to get the desired resolution of the images they draw.