3D artist amazes Londoners

By Eric Shackle

Last February, we reported that British pavement artist Julian Beever, nicknamed "the Pavement Picasso," created a modern-day Fountain of Youth in the core of the Big Apple. on the south side of New York's Union Square.

He painted on the two-D surface of the sidewalk an incredibly realistic 3D image of a fountain splashing water into a blue pool. An attractive girl was apparently standing in the shrub-lined pool, and at the far end a man was testing the depth of the water with one foot. But it was all a magnificent illusion.

Now his American counterpart, the equally talented 3D artist Kurt Wenner, has crossed the Atlantic in the opposite direction, and set to work in London, amazing passers-by at Waterloo railway station.

Hailing Wenner as a 3D Michelangelo, the Daily Mail said:

Nothing is what it seems in these remarkable pictures which take pavement art to a new level. A woman sitting on a sofa, seemingly oblivious to a taxi crashing through her front room wall; a dramatic take on Verdi's opera Aida; and eternal damnation on Judgment Day.

The American artist who created them - Kurt Wenner - is a former Nasa illustrator who began street painting in Rome in 1982, inspired by Renaissance frescos and sculptures. He translated the anamorphism - the technique used by classical artists to create the illusion of height - into a new way of painting to give depth to the street surface.

The art form became known as anamorphic, illusionistic or simply 3D painting, and has gained huge popularity around the world.

If you click on the first link (below) you'll see a great collection of Wenner's stunning 3D masterpieces.