[by Elizabeth Haggarty, Toronto Star]
If the sidewalk in front of you suddenly opens up to reveal the depths of Hell, you’ve probably stumbled across the work of Kurt Wenner.
Street artist, geometry innovator and former NASA employee, Wenner has been mastering the art of 3D drawings since 1982 when he abandoned his native California to study Renaissance painting in Italy.
Covering sidewalks in images of beautiful sirens and marauding monsters for pedestrians to stumble upon wasn’t always part of Wenner’s plan.
“One day, I saw a street painting and asked the artist what he was doing,” Wenner writes about his early days in Rome on his website. “He explained the tradition of street painting in Europe to me, and after viewing my museum drawings asked if I’d like to paint the head of an angel while he went to lunch. Working with the chalks came very naturally, and from that point on I’ve been street painting,” Wenner explains.
Street art has a history in Italy dating back to the 16th century, when vagabond artists called madonnari would draw religious effigies on the streets with the hope that passersby would throw money on them in hope of a miracle or blessing.
But back then 2D was the norm. Five hundred years later Wenner hit the scene and anamorphic — or 3D — street painting was born.
“Three-dimensional street painting is my own invention,” Wenner said in an email to the Star. “I created it by studying a type of anamorphism that existed in the 17th century.”
Climbing scaffolding to examine baroque frescoes in churches across Italy, Wenner noticed the artists had used elongated figures to make their works appear normal when viewed from the ground.
“I started creating my particular perspective geometry by adjusting the proportions of the painted forms to accommodate the viewpoints of the spectators standing at the base of the work,” Wenner said. “Unlike traditional anamorphic compositions, such as church ceilings, the viewing angles were very wide, and I started to use a curvilinear fish eye lens to document the compositions.”
The son of a mathematician and a music teacher, Wenner painted his first mural for a Santa Barbara, Cali. ice cream shop when he was 16. Wenner now lives in California.
“I portrayed the family of the owners in a composition that was a cross between the Last Supper and Alice in Wonderland,” Wenner said.
Since then he has painted a rendition of the Last Judgment for Pope John Paul II’s visit to Mantua, Italy, bucking broncos and their riders spiralling out of a brick pit at the Calgary Stampede and sharp tooth monsters crawling from the crypt for the launch of Microsoft X-Games Gears of War in Los Angeles.
In all, his love for late Italian renaissance and early baroque frequently shines through and they all appear to be in 3D when viewed from the proper angle.
Perched on the world’s pavements Wenner used to complete his drawings freestyle, carefully manoeuvring over each painted section, so as to not scuff his work, as crowds gathered to watch. Since taking on more commissioned pieces, he has turned to sketching the final street art/optical illusion before laying it down on the concrete.
Most of his works take five to seven days to complete and cover around 25 square metres.
But Wenner didn’t start his career as a street artist. Instead, he initially worked as a visual artist for NASA.
“[I] created artist’s renderings of future projects to Mars, Venus, and even the sun. The images were created by hand from scientific data, landscapes of outer planets and future spacecraft,” Wenner said.
Today, Wenner is preparing to release a book, Asphalt Renaissance, on his street art and hopes to move into making permanent, museum installations.
But until then, his street art remains, as long as the rains, wandering pedestrian feet and city cleaners permit them.
See the original post here: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/990443–3d-street-art-claws-through-the-pavement