Yesterday I was checking out a new art blog Lines and Color and stumbled across the incredible public murals of John Pugh, Trompe L'oeil artist. Pugh is a California artist whose incredibly life-like murals are displayed across the country on various buildings and businesses. The first one that caught my eye was this incredibly wave image on a building in Honolulu. It was hard for me to imagine that the building was flat, that this is just a wall.
Pugh has had several incidents involving his work. I was reading on his website (linked above) that a Hawaiian Fire Department, shortly after this was painted, stopped traffic and attempted to save the children up on the ledge. They quickly got close and realized the children weren't real. I was shocked to find out that the woman looking "into" this building below was also painting. Pugh incorporates so many parts of the original wall and this simply looks so real that many of his buildings have caused traffic accidents as driver attempt to understand what they are seeing.
My favorite story from Pugh's site is the one about the cafe below. The owner of the cafe, which is in San Jose, received a complaint from one of the patrons. I guess the patron had approached the woman in the picture and attempted to introduce himself. He was strangely given the silent treatment. By the way, nothing in this picture is real. The woman, the sculpture, the plant, and of course the doorway is not real. All a trick of paint and depth.
There is a magic and a wonder to this type of painting. I have no clue how he achieves such illusions of depth but I am in awe of it. I've seen my share of good and bad Trompe L'oeil but this man has to be considered a master. And a new favorite muralist for me.
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