Sergey Artemyev is a Russian artist who specializes in oil on canvas and pastel on canvas paintings, including some of the best optical illusions we’ve ever seen.

When creating painted replicas of real-life objects, depth and thickness are some of the toughest things to pull off, which makes sense, as creating painted renditions of three-dimensional objects is anything but easy. Still, we’ve some pretty impressive optical illusions in the past, so it’s definitely doable, but few can do it better than Sergey Artemyev. The Russian artist is so confident in his ability to paint hyperrealistic replicas of various objects that he places them right next to his artworks and you still can’t tell which one is real.

Photos: artemyev_art/Instagram

Born in 1960 in Leningrad, Sergey Artemyev graduated from the Physics and Mathematics School No. 30 in his home city, then he entered the Engineering and Economic University. It was here that he began exploring his artistic side. He signed up for painting classes under Solomon Epstein and eventually decided to pursue an artistic career.

For most of his career, Artemyev focused on painting portraits and landscapes, and had several dozen exhibitions, both in Russia and abroad. However, it was only recently that he managed to appeal to a young audience online, with the help of his impressive optical illusions.

Using the skills that he had developed over decades, Artemyev began drawing realistic copies of mundane objects, from spoons to lollipops and grapes. To make his creations even more impressive, he always displays them right next to the actual object that inspired them, showing them from the front and from the side.

Looking straight at the artwork from the front, it’s often impossible to tell which one is the real object and which is the painting. It’s only when seen from the side that you realize the level of Artemyev’s skills at depicting 3D objects with brush strokes.

Apart from the quality of his optical illusions, Sergey Artemyev has also been praised for the speed with which he paints. While some artists spend days, sometimes weeks creating hyperrealistic paintings, the Sankt Petersburg native takes a couple of hours on average to finish one of his mind-blowing optical illusions.

For more of Sergey Artemyev’s eye trickery, make sure to check out his TikTok and Instagram.