For the past two summers, Montreal contemporary realist painter Alex Kasyan has ventured out of the confines of his studio and into the streets, oil paints and brushes in hand.
A tripod holds his box of paints, a blank canvas clipped to the top of the lid. Over the course of several hours, Kasyan replicates an iconic landscape — piquing the interest of passersby who he says so rarely see full-time artists in the flesh.
Francine Bidal, herself a painter, is one of many to stop and speak with Kasyan as he works on a painting near Montreal’s Atwater Market. Allen McInnis / Montreal Gazette
His realistic “plein air” paintings — and the trompe l’oeil photos of them replacing the part of the landscape he recreated — have also attracted the attention of Montrealers online, racking up likes on Reddit.