I was checking out the new additions at Snopes and came across a link for an artist with unusual techniques. I keep opening this page and marvelling at the skill it must take to create his pieces. The site is:
http://www.kurtwenner.com/gallery.htm
Has anyone ever seen one of his works in person? I wonder if the feeling of depth comes through as well in person as it does in the photographs. I’m sure I’m probably the last person to see his work, but I have never seen anything like it.
Juxtapoz magazine did a feature on him a year or so ago. I scanned several pics of his work and put them up in my office. He is amazing.
His work on sidewalks is done with basically popsickle sticks. He uses paint that’s mostly water resistant, but that still doesn’t prevent his work from washing away when it rains hard.
What I liked was seeing pictures of people staying a safe distance away from his sidewalk art, afraid they were about to fall in. It’s amazing how anybody can capture a 3D perspective on a flat surface like that. He can do the Wile E. Coyote thing where he paints a tunnel on a rock wall and make it look convincing.
Okay, that’s officially amazing.
Maybe he sells posters? I hope?
Someone sent me some of these pictures in an email a couple of weeks back, just amazing work.
I have, however, been trying to wrap my mind around something with them: is the illusion good from all perspectives? It doesn’t seem like it would be, if you came up on the picture from the wrong direction, it wouldn’t work.
Would it?
No, the illusion would not work from any side other than the one the pictures are taken from. From the other side, you’d sorta get an illusion of the picture seeming to pop up instead of going down, but it would look heavily distorted and obviously false.
I especially enjoyed the one with the live actors posing with their painted ‘reflections’. That’s just pure genius in art.
This thread is better suited for Cafe Society. I’ll move it for you.
Cajun Man
for the SDMB
The technique is known as trompe l’oeil. If you Google on that term (or trompe l’oeil mural), you’ll see many more artists’ examples. Yes, the illusion works only from one perspective point. Another technique that depends on viewing a piece from a specific angle is anamorphic painting, where some of the images can only be seen properly by using a cylindrical mirror.