Photorealism or Cheezy art?: Memories (part 2)

Memorias (work-in-progress)
Acrylic on Canvas, 4' x 3'

I've made some more progress on my attempt at photorealism (see below). I still have to remove the blue tape and put in some shadows at the bottom of the envelop, and I misspelled one of the words in the text (yikes!).

I'm still not sure how I feel about this painting. It is a combination of photorealism and Trompe L'oiel, although the Trompe L'oielists would say it's not strickly trompe l'oiel because it is not the actual size of the referent material. My canvas is 4' x 3' -- far too big to be photos and letters.

I wanted to use a combination of the two approaches, drawing the viewer into a simultanously shallow and deep depth of field. I also wanted the viewer to think about visual communication -- the stamps being abstractions of the 'real' palm trees in the landscape. But of course the 'real' palm trees are also abstractions, albiet naturalistically rendered, of the artist. Lastly, I wanted to put in text -- a Ruben Dario poem -- which is a visual symbol and an abstraction or metaphor. I think that why I am drawn to photorealism, trompe l'oiel, anamorphic art, surrealism. They all engage the viewer -- perhaps in a rather cerebral way -- in a in a dialogue on how we as human beings constantly construct and reconstruct the world.