This past summer, we were very impressed by the new series of paintings by Brooklyn-based Alyssa Monks. Today, we look at a few new works, as well as a few studies from Monks, works that are characterized by the appearence that the subjects are being captured in the fog of a shower, with a bit of hiding and protection for the models.

Over the past 6 months, we have noticed a trend that we thought was true and was proven correct. Our readers love a good hyperreal, photorealstic painting. Each artist with the skill to create a photorealistic piece has their own style and strengths, and we combed over our content from the past year to bring to you the very best photoreal painters featured Juxtapoz.com. Don't blink and make sure you look closely. These are the talents that make you have a double take.

We have shown you the photoreal paintings of Brooklyn-based painter Alyssa Monks in the past in our Erotica section, and today we were really enjoying her new works painted in 2012. As the years have gone on, Monks' hyperreal paintings have become more abstract, with flesh hiding behind steamed surfaces, obscuring the body and facial expressions, and figures are more in performance with their poses than in works past.

'Alyssa Monks’ paintings explore the tension between abstraction and realism, using different filters to visually distort and disintegrate the body. In this shallow painted space, the subject is pushing against our real space. Strokes of thick paint in delicate color relationships are pushed and pulled to imitate glass, steam, water and flesh.'

Born 1977 in Ridgewood, New Jersey, Alyssa Monks began oil painting as a child. Monks’ paintings explore the tension between abstraction and realism, using different filters to visually distort and disintegrate the body. In this shallow painted space, the subject is pushing against our real space. “When I began painting the human body, I was obsessed with it and needed to create as much realism as possible. I chased realism until it began to unravel and deconstruct itself,” Alyssa states.