Italian artist Marco Grassi paints portraits of women that are so perfect, down to the fine hair lines, pores and freckles on the skin that people often mistake them for photographs.

However, Grassi differentiates himself from other hyper-realist painters by giving his artworks a surreal twist. In one painting, for example, his subject’s back is adorned with a tribal motif that seems carved into her back revealing a hollow interior. Other of his ‘surreal hyper-realistic” include a woman with spectacular glowing tattoos that seem to emerge from her skin, or another with a futuristic glass necklace around her neck. Although his human subjects appear photographed, it’s these little impossible details that give them away as paintings.

Marco Grassi says that the contrast between the warmth and softness of the human body and the colder, harsher materials he includes “allows the human body to act like a shell with a wonderful surface but with an emptiness inside.”

The uber-talented Italian artist told The Huffington Post that he usually invests around two-three months into each one of his photo-like paintings due to the “complexity of the design and the technique of realization.” That might seem like a long time, but judging by the level of detail displayed in works, I’d say it’s rather short.

Photos: Marco Grassi