Leslie Fornalik

I am a contemporary realism painter, born in Southern California, but raised in Western New York, where I currently reside and work. 

Within my artistic career, my work is wide ranging, but my specialty and true love is Trompe L'oeil.  Trompe L'oeil is the art of visual optical illusion.  It seeks to trick the viewer into perceiving three dimensional objects through the use of color, shading, light and shadow.  Throughout these pieces, I focus especially on detail and composition and my goal is to find beauty, meaning and whimsy through hyperrealistic depictions of commonplace objects.  Be it the subtle fold of paper on an old letter or intricate textures of a leaf, my interest is in exploring and capturing the beauty of objects -- often telling a larger story through them.

My work is held in private collections throughout the United States, Germany and China.  It can also be viewed at Dana Tillou Fine Arts (click below).