Johanne Corno’s women stare at us proudly, almost insolently. They gaze straight ahead, sideways, askance, with head thrown back or from under hooded eyelids. These women are, in the parlance of the fashion industry, “working it”.

The paintings of Ms Corno, a Canadian artist currently exhibiting at Opera Gallery, stand in that increasingly fertile territory between art and mode. Her huge works – one triptych measures 183 by 457 cm in its entirety – are extreme close-ups of the kind of beautiful, expertly made-up faces that would not look out of place on the cover of Vogue.

But instead of glossy photography, the works are done in mixed media, with her subjects’ hair, in particular, exhibiting broad, purposefully unkempt brushstrokes of paintwork. There is also a comic-book quality that adds to the sense of plasticity of her subjects – they could all be Dick Tracy heroines.

In such works, of course, the term “artist’s model” takes on a whole new meaning. It is hard to gauge to what extent the painter wants to duplicate the slickness of a fashion shoot and to what extent she wants to make a statement about the slickness. (Indeed, in contemporary art, the distinction hardly matters, the medium being the message being the medium, etc.)

Ms Corno, who now lives in New York, is sharing a double-bill at Opera Gallery with Ali Esmaeilipour, whose works are also a blend of plasticity and naturalism. Mr Esmaeilipour, who hails from Iran, has lived in Singapore for the past 11 years and exhibits regularly, every one or two years.

He likes to call his works, where everyday, almost hyper-realist objects are placed next to each other in unfamiliar ways, “poetry realism”. His acrylic works depict scenes that are fanciful and improbable – a woman wrapped in a Persian shawl gazing at a doorway with a Chinese lantern – but not impossible, like a bowler hat on an invisible head.

Perhaps because of where he comes from, Mr Esmaeilipour emphasises that his art is apolitical. “I don’t want to make a story of my work,” he says. “My art is about beauty, it is about light, life and form. My art has to be connected with myself, that’s all that matters.”

In his current exhibition, Mr Esmaeilipour has kept to his signature style of painting over his frames, sometimes with trompe l'oeil effect so that his works look like they’re bordered with Mediterranean tiles or wooden boards, sometimes treating the frame as part of his canvas so it becomes barely discernible.

“I like borders; they make a painting look clothed,” says the artist. “I don’t want my frames to look like they have come out of a factory.”

The exhibition, which opened yesterdayand runs through May 17, is held at Opera’s temporary premises at Robertson Walk. The gallery has moved out of its Ngee Ann City premises and will move into its permanent show space at the Ion building once the latter’s construction is completed in the second half of the year.

Mr Esmaeilipour’s last few exhibitions were sell-outs before opening night, and it will be interesting to see how fast his works are picked up in the current economic climate, and which demographic is now attracted to his price range of $14,000-$35,000.

Ms Corno’s price range is higher at $20,000 to $75,000, due partly to the dimensions of her pieces.

Stephane Le Pelletier, Asia-Pacific director of the Opera Gallery Group, says Ms Corno represents a “modern edginess”.

“Her works are striking and individualistic and that to us is the element du jour, very attractive for younger collectors today,” he adds.

The works of Johanne Corno and Ali Esmaeilipour are on show at Opera Gallery, #01-20 Robertson Walk until May 17.