The dictionary definition of Anamorphosis is “distorted projection or perspective requiring the viewer to use special devices or occupy a specific vantage point to reconstitute the image.” This term, however, has found a contemporary meaning: 3-D Street Art. Through the late 80′s and the 90′s many street artists rose to international fame because of their amazing talent in creating anamorphosis street art. Two of the great street artits of all time, Kurt Wenner and Julian Beever, were famous for anamorphosis.
KURT WENNER has been called the most imporatnt artists in the anamorphosis street art movement. He was born in Ann Arbor Michigan and began earning a living off his graphic designs at 17. He studied art at a graphic design school and worked for NASA as a young adult “creating conceptual paintings of future space projects and extraterrestrial landscapes.” After doing this he is reported to have sold all of his belongings and moved to Italy were he studied the works of the master painters of the Renaissance. He was inspired by Renaissance frescos and sculptures, which shows in his style. His street paintings began in 1982 and have become internationally famous and he has been commisioned all around the world to do them (for businesses and people).
Dies Irae by Kurt Wenner, Aug 2005
By Kurt Wenner, 2006, Located at the National Museaum of Singapore
Untitled, Drawn at Waterloo Station in England, 2007
JULIAN BEEVER is an English chalk artist based out of Belgium. He has been creating anamorphosis street chalk drawings since the early 1990′s. His style is different from Wenner’s because it is not as influenced by Renaissance art. Beever makes his living by doing promotional chalk drawings from businesses througout Europe and North and South America. He is internationally acclaimed for this and still works as a street artist to this day. An interesting thing to note anout Julian Beever’s works is that they are usually untitled and undated. Their existance is portrayed by photographs of people standing with or near them after they have been completed.
Julian Beever
Julian Beever
Julian Beever
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All of the art works I have exhibited in my blog have many common themes: They are street art and they all are anamorphosis art works. The three works by Wenner are absolutly beautiful! They look just like the classics of the Renaissance except they have a modern twits- they are down on a city sidewalk. To me they look like portals into another world or into the past and I wish it was possible to jump in to them, like in the movie/book Marry Poppins! The works by Beever are more modern (meaning they do not reflect a past style of art) but they are still amazing, like optical illusions- and they still have the same “portal” feel as Wenner’s works. Overall I find the anamorphosis style to be captivating and unearthly, they have a science fiction feel to them that is absolutely enthralling.
Individually I think the paintings shown in this blog speak for themselves. The first one posted is by Wenner in the Renaissnce style, and the second one is done in the same style as the first except it has a more Asiantic feel, which to me make it more contemporary. I love the third one! It is definetly contemporary and is very playful, I think that it is set in sounthern America because of the watermellon and chickens.
The fourth picture I posted (the first one by Beever) is a promotion for a water company and shows the water piping under a sidewalk. The next one is of an archaeological dig- I really like this one because of how real it looks! It’s almost as if you could jump into it. The last one is straightforward- a Coke advertisement but it reminds me of Pop Art and Andy Warhol because of the way it looks in the middle of the street.
