Kurt Wenner Creates 3D Chalk Illusions In New York & Worldwide

Written by Adam Balkin Saturday, 14 April 2012 22:46

New York (NY1 News). - A New York sidewalk was transformed into the 3D deck of a cruise ship, thanks to the work of aclaimed 3D chalk artist Kurt Wenner. The temporary piece was recently done in Manhattan's Financial District as a promotion for Celebrity Cruise's new Silhouette in order to allow passersby a chance to step inside the ship's Lawn Club Grill. Wenner has mastered the technique of "trompe l'oeil" or making a 2D picture seem like a 3D world, and how he does this is understandably complicated. He paid lots of attention in his math classes and used what he learned to trick the human eye. In addition to creating 3D Street Painting for Publicity and Advertising, Kurt Wenner designs Villas and Residential architecture. He also creates lavish Interior design and classically inspired Product Design. Wenner also creates public and private commissioned oil paintings, murals, sculpture and architecture all over the world.

"Actually I solved a bit of a problem that baffled Renaissance artists, and that was how to show the width of human vision," says Wenner. "Our vision is very wide and geometry of perspective tends to blow out after a certain angle of vision, which is why lenses are more narrow on cameras and so forth. But I did figure out a way to reverse the distortion of the eye and project it out on to the pavement." Just to be clear, the works only appear to be 3D when viewed from a single, exact spot. Wenner says it took a good 15 years from the time he started doing these until other artists with computers started to mimic the effect, but even then he says computers are not quite there yet. "This type of distortion I use is hyperbolic distortion, which is the reverse of a curved lens, and people who do this kind of work in the computer, it has to remain straight-line, so it's called rectilinear, straight-line geometry," he says. Wenner says while he prefers to do work on mythological creatures, these days he finds himself doing more pieces that viewers can interact with and insert themselves in for a souvenir.




Kurt Wenner produced his first commissioned mural at the age of sixteen and by seventeen was earning his living as a graphic artist. He attended both Rhode Island School of Design and Art Center College of Design. He was employed by NASA as an illustrator to create conceptual paintings of future space projects and extraterrestrial landscapes. In 1982, he left NASA, sold all of his belongings, and moved to Italy to study art. Living in Rome, Wenner studied the masters and classical sculptures in the museums. In 1991, he was commissioned to create a piece to honor the visit of Pope John Paul II to the city of Mantua. The event was broadcast live on television throughout Italy.

While studying classical architecture and perspective, Kurt Wenner applied the principles of classical drawing and classical design to the sidewalk, completely transforming the art form. Masterpieces in Chalk was the National Geographic documentary that established 3D Street Painting as a new art form. All 3D Pavement Artists, 3D Sidewalk Artists, and 3D Chalk artists can all trace the roots of their work back to the street art of Rome in 1982, where Kurt Wenner transformed the complex geometry of Classical Italian Architecture into a new form of Popular Art. Whether they are called Street Paintings, Chalk Paintings, Sidewalk Paintings or pavement art, if they have a three-dimensional illusion they can be traced back to Kurt Wenner pastel drawings.

One of his largest U.S. murals (18 ft/6 m square) is located on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, California and appeared in the movie "Sneakers". Another large mural titled The Magic Flute hangs in the current Fresno, California City Hall. Visit the artists website at ... http://www.kurtwenner.com

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