David Lyle skillfully reproduces black and white photographs with a playful edge

Black and white is still cool; as much as yellow is happy, blue is chilled out and purple? Well purple’s up for anything. This classic pairing still does it for me, even more so in photographs. But what about paintings that look like black and white photographs I hear you ask? I like them too, having been convinced by David Lyle’s excellent reproductions of old photographs with a twist of modern playfulness popped in there.

Achieved using oil paints, the detail and skill in these paintings is pretty spectacular but it’s the added elements David’s placed in the image that allow it to become more that just duplicates of photographs we’ve already seen. A snappy scorpion, sticks of dynamite or a box of rat poison next to the woman cooking, these tokens of danger add a little edge to the perfect smiles and wholesome attitudes of the subjects making me enjoy them all the more.