Absolutely Amazing Street Art

August 20, 2010 in Art

Don’t you just love it when you walk down a street and come across some guy or girl creating artwork right there on the pavement? Some of these artists are amazing in the effects they can produce, and this art form has been around for a very long time. Street painting has been recorded throughout Europe since the 16th century. Street painters in Italy are called madonnari because they often created pictures representing the Madonna . In England they are called screevers.

The madonnari were itinerant artists. Aware of festival and holy days in each province and town, they traveled to join in the festivities. They created images in public squares and in front of the local church using bits of broken roof tiles, charcoal, and white chalk Passersby would often leave a bit of bread or olive oil for the artist along with an occasional coin. After the festivities or with the first rain, both the painting and the painter would vanish. For centuries madonnari were folk artists, reproducing simple images with crude materials, until WWII, disrupted their tradition and reduced their numbers.

In 1972 the first International Street Painting Competition was held in Italy. The goal of the competition was to record and publicize the work of (those thought to be) the last practitioners of this traditional art form. The eldest painters were already in their 90s.

The 1972 festival resulted in national recognition of the validity of the art form, causing a new generation of street painters to emerge. Within a decade these artists were using commercial and handmade pastels to create copies of well-known masterpieces.

Over the years, the competition has drawn younger painters and larger crowds. The festival remains popular and street painting festivals around the world are modeled on the event. Today, there are some utterly incredible artists whose work can leave you giddy with amazement, if not vertigo. They love to practice the art of illusion, and are so good at this that your senses may well be fooled temporarily.

Julian Beever is an English artist who is famous for his art on the pavements of England, France, Germany, USA, Australia and Belgium. Its peculiarity lies in the fact that Beever gives his images three dimensionality when viewed from the correct angle. It’s amazing, but then again, so is 41year old German artist Edgar Mueller, who produces epic street art that takes the breath away.. His first really big work (270 square metres) was at the Prairie Art Festival in Moose Jaw in Canada where he turned River Street into a river ending in a huge waterfall.

In Dun Laoghaire in Ireland he was invited to create something for the Festival of World Cultures, supported by the Goethe Institution as the German contribution to the Art Festival. He transformed a section of the East Pier into a yawning Ice Age crevice, a feat that took Mueller and his five assistants five days to complete, using acrylic house paint.

Last but not least we feature Kurt Wenner, a US artist born in Michigan, whose painting, on pavements and streets has featured in newspapers and on television. A former NASA illustrator, Kurt has had his work featured in a lengthy list of articles, television features, ads, and documentaries.

One thing these amazing guys have in common is rthe ability to delight us with artwork that takes perspective to a whole new level and allows us to give free rien to our imaginations. I will be doing another piece on street art, the kind od three-dimensional illusion art called Trompe d’oeil, where the veyes is always decieved. Personally I think what street artistrs give us is a fresh and fun way to apreciate artistic talent and I am all for it.