Buffalo Rising Online

Let's say right off the bat that the term "artistic genius" is thrown about a bit much. But in the case of AJ Fries, the word genius is more than an admission on his business card. Sure, it's a laugh, and Fries is good for plenty of those. But then you see one of his paintings, and the levity dwindles to total silence. He's a dead-on realist with camera-like precision. His paintings are awesomely three dimensional, and one sees all at once that the genius bit is no joke.

When you realize that you're looking at a painted image, not a photograph, something fires in your brain; you're head cantors to the side, and there's an almost uncomfortable sense of trying to right yourself in front of something that you know is a painting while another part of you thinks, No. No way. No one can paint a pile of clear bubbles like that. Or, No way in hell is that not a photograph of water droplets on stainless steel. You can almost smell the bubble soap, almost feel the wetness of the drops of …