Jacob Collins

is one of the great modern realist painters. He's a student of Ted Seth Jacobs, who also taught Dennis Cheaney, who I've studied with. What I particularly like about Jacob is his facility in finding exactly the right combinations of light and color to create a mood. The work is finely-rendered without being fussy. It is informed by the work of the past, but is still clearly from the early 21st century. In his best work he creates a kind of visual hyper-reality, in a manner similar to, but different from, the work of Andrew Wyeth.

You can see his work at his web site. There's some other good stuff at the Art Renewal Center.

I hope he doesn't mind my posting a sample of his work: