High-resolution digital windows like the ones sold by LiquidView give users the chance to wake up to virtually any view imaginable, even if they have no conventional windows. Modern problems require modern solutions, and when it comes to the lack of windows or desirable views, American company LiquidViews has an intriguing proposition – a virtual window. Consisting primarily of a series of high-resolution digital panels and a kit to make them blend seamlessly into any space, like a normal window, the virtual window also offers users access to a subscription-based content library featuring beautiful locations all over the world. Accessible via a dedicated smartphone app, the library syncs with your local time to offer an immersive experience. Read More »

Kurt Wenner, a former NASA illustrator turned professional artist, specializes in chalk-drawn three-dimensional illusions that seem carved into the pavement rather than drawn on it. Born and raised in Santa Barbara, California, Kurt Wenner attended both the Rhode Island School of Design and Art Center in Pasadena and was quickly recruited to work for NASA while studying at the Art Center. There, he was among the few highly skilled artists whose work was done solely by hand. Eventually, Kurt eft the agency and moved to Europe to study some of the world’s greatest works of art. Disappointed to find no class on the principles of classicism, the young artist came up with his own self-learning program which involved spending countless hours drawing from the magnificent art collection of the Vatican Museums and the Pantheon. Read More »

Talented Nigerian artist Patrick Onyekwere creates stunning, emotionally-charged portraits that look more like photographs than ballpoint pen drawings. Living and working in Lagos, Nigeria, Patrick Onyekwere started drawing professionally in 2015 and has since become one of the world’s leading ballpoint pen drawing masters. A fan of Kelvin Okafor, himself an accomplished hyperrealist artist specializing in pencil portraits, Onyekwere is able to capture and convey the emotions and feelings of his models like no one else. He actually has an entire selection process that starts with inviting subjects to talk about their lives and their culture, before taking a few snapshots of them for reference. Read More »

A 33-year-old artist from Chenzou, China, has been getting a lot of attention for turning trees, utility poles, and road signs into optical illusions that blend into their backgrounds. Huang Yao is a talented 3D painter who showcases his skills by turning local infrastructure and plant life into original artworks. The young Chinese specializes in creating perfect camouflage for his creations, which makes them blend into the background perfectly. But that would mean that most people either walk right by them without even noticing his stunning work, or run straight into them and injure themselves. Neither case is ideal, so Huang usually adds certain elements to make his optical illusions stand out. Read More »

Mayor Olajide, a 19-year-old artist from Nigeria, has taken the hyperrealistic art world by storm with his photo-realistic charcoal pencil portraits. We’ve featured some really gifted hyperrealism artists on Oddity Central over the years, true masters like Anna Halldin Maule, Hirothropologie, or Dru Blair, but it’s rare to see that kind of talent in someone as young as 19. And yet, here is Mayor Olajide, a 19-year-old Nigerian artist who has been attracting attention with his hyperrealistic pencil drawings for at least a couple of years now. He apparently started drawing when he was only 5 years old, and by age 15, he was already selling his art pieces and taking commissions to contribute to the family budget. Today, he is considered one of the world’s most promising hyperrealists. Read More »

Randresson Vieira, a talented makeup artist from Brazil, can turn into virtually any cartoon and anime character using his insane bodypainting skills. 30-year-old Randresson Vieira, an architect and urban planner by training, puts his passion for fine arts to good use by turning himself into real-world versions of popular characters from beloved anime series like One Piece, Dragon Ball and Naruto. The young self-taught artist uses his insane bodypainting abilities to expertly apply layers of paint on his face and torso and completes the impressive transformations with hand-drawn paper cutouts of the characters’ hair. Read More »

Fabio Gomes Trindade, a talented Brazilian street artist, creates stunning graffiti masterpieces by combining his detailed portraits with branches of trees and flowering bushes. Whenever he starts work on a new project, Fabio Gomes Trindade first chooses the location of the artwork. The presence of lunch trees or flowering bushes is critical, as they basically make up about half the artwork. The Brazilian artist uses graffiti to depict the faces and part of the hair of the portraits he creates, letting nature take care of the rest. Seeing the artworks from the perfect angles, they look like a perfect collaborative effort between man and nature. Read More »

When it comes ultra-realistic pencil drawings, you’d have a hard time finding someone better than Italian industrial designer turned artist Alessandro Paglia. Having studying design at Politecnico di Milano, Alessandro Paglia managed to secure a job at 3M, working its first  international Design Center for five years. He then moved to a light design company and then to a brand design agency, but eventually realized that it wasn’t what he wanted to do in life. He had always been more fascinated by the artistic side of design, and his career was steering him further away from that. So one day Alessandro quit his job and decided to focus exclusively on artistic drawings, and we’re glad he did, because otherwise we would have probably never gazed upon his shiny masterpieces. Read More »

Carlos Alberto GH, a Mexican artist based in Guadalajara, specializes in anamorphic street art representing all sorts of surrealistic scenes that come to life when seen from just the right angle. From birds and reptiles seemingly coming out of walls, to whales floating above urban sidewalks, street artist Carlos Alberto GH seems capable of turning anything he can think of into a stunning optical illusion. A former archaeological restorer focusing on Mayan sites and artefacts, the 31-year-old artist now dedicates all his time and attention to anamorphic art and detailed street murals. Read More »

From rendering parts of her body invisible, to transforming into a variety of fictional characters, there’s no optical illusion Mirjana ‘Kika’ Milosevic can’t pull off with her makeup skills. Serbian “skin illusionist” and makeup-artist extraordinaire, Kika Milosevic has never been interested in expressing her talent on conventional canvases. As a child, she would crawl under tables and draw on the backside of them, as well as on the doors and walls of her home. As an adult, Kika chose her own body as a canvas, using makeup and body paint to create the most stunning optical illusions. Read More »

Emanuele Dascanio is a super-talented artist whose graphite and charcoal pencil drawings look like high-resolution black-and-white photographs. Looking at some of 37-year-old Emanuele Dascanio’s masterpieces, it’s easy to see why he sometimes takes hundreds of hours to complete a single piece. He often works 12 to 14 hours a day, often sacrificing his private life for art, but he sees it as an investment, if he sows a lot today, he’ll have more results to harvest in the future. The level of detail he is able to achieve using simple pencils is mind-blowing, making it easy to understand why is considered one of the most gifted hyperrealists of this generation. Read More »

A young tattoo artist who goes by the name ‘Ngoc’ on social media has become famous for helping people, especially women hide their scars by inking beautiful artworks over them For many people having to live with visible scars, either from accidental burns, operations like appendectomy or cesarean section is an everyday struggle. But thanks to talented tattoo artist Ngoc, some of them don’t have to. The Hanoi-based artist is known as a magician in the Vietnamese tattooing community, as scars are considered very difficult to deal with, but she always seems to find the best design to perfectly conceal them. Read More »

According to a fascinating new study, the Andean condor spend almost all of their flying time in soaring mode, flapping their wings only 1.3 percent of the time. Weighing up to about 16 kilograms and with a wingspan of roughly 3.3 meters, the condor is the largest flying bird in the world by combined measurement of weight and wingspan. With that in mind, it’s almost impossible to believe that it can stay airborne for at least five hours and cover a distance of over 100 miles without flapping its enormous wings once. But that was the most interesting finding of a study published by researchers at the University of Swansea after monitoring a group of condors for five years. Read More »

Armed with a simply can of spray paint, French artist SCAF uses his imagination and mountains of talent to turn abandoned urban spaces into three-dimensional graffiti masterpieces. Looking at SCAF’s expertly spray-painted trompe l’oeil graffiti artworks, it’s hard to believe that he is a completely self-taught street artist. He never studied art and started experimenting with graffiti in abandoned factories 18 years ago, after being inspired by a colleague at school. He has come a long way since his early days, as you can plainly see, but he continues to practice his skill in abandoned places, like factories, houses and manors, because he feels like his art adds value to such derelict edifices. Read More »

Fueled by her passion for makeup, a 21-year-old self-taught makeup artist from Vietnam has become a master at using her own face to create all sorts of crazy optical illusions. Hoa Trang has always been fascinated by makeup, but she could never afford to take professional classes, so she decided to teach herself, by watching online tutorials and following Instagram influencers like Mimi Choi (who she credits as one of her inspirations). She started experimenting with facial illusions only three years ago, but because the style was relatively new in Vietnam, she got a lot of attention online and managed to build up a sizable following on social networks like Instagram and Facebook. Read More »