What is Photorealism?

‘Photorealism’ describes work by a loose group of artists who based their paintings on photography. They embrace the photograph as a subject and incorporate the detached vision of the camera into their work.
This gives their paintings an astonishing degree of clarity - a captured moment, fleeting effects of light and shade - that requires significant artistic skill to replicate in paint. The paintings in this group typically depict scenes of everyday American life in the mid-twentieth century. While each artist’s approach is distinct, common subjects include cars, motorcycles, gas stations and symbols of mass consumerism: diners, advertising billboards and neon store signs.