Japanese artist Riusuke Fukahori has captivated the world with a series of stunningly realistic three dimensional paintings featuring goldfish.

Fukahori paints the goldfish by using acrylic paint on layers of clear resin, meticulously adding layer upon layer to give the paintings an amazing sense of depth. The result is an image so breathtakingly detailed that we could only think these were real goldfish suspended in time.

The paintings were on display earlier this month at an exhibition titled Goldfish Salvation at the ICN Gallery in London.

A promotional video for the event showing how Fukahori creates these images was released onto YouTube, where it quickly gained the attention of users from around the net.

On the front page of his official blog, Fukahori reveals what inspired him to choose goldfish as the subject of his paintings:
　

12 years ago, on the day when I was at my most depressed and thinking of giving up my dream of painting, my attention was inadvertently caught by the single red goldfish that I kept in the room. It was a shabby, common Japanese goldfish that I had kept for 7 years. Opening the lid of the filth-covered aquarium, I watched as the goldfish wiggled around. Its back glittered red in the water and I was captivated by its beauty. I thought: “Why has it taken me so long to notice this beauty? This little fish will surely save me.” I then began to paint goldfish and now, 11 years later, I am still painting them. (Translated by RocketNews24)

Reading this and looking back at his paintings, it’s almost as if Fukahori is breathing life into the same goldfish that saved his.

Photographer Dominic Alves has shared a number of wonderful pictures of the painings on his Flickr, but we hope that Riusuke Fukahori brings his work back to Japan so we can see them with our own eyes!

Source：YouTube/NaxxyChannel, Riusuke Fukuhara Official Blog (Japanese only)
Photos: Flickr/ Dominic Alves


[ Read in Japanese ]