Edgar Mueller’s Street Tromp l’oeil

Last month a Lighthouse Center of the Arts student sent me an e-mail about Edgar Mueller’s unsettling and fascinating murals. Actually, I imagine that seeing these Brobdingnagian artworks in person must be at minimum a vertiginous experience, followed be incredulity and that might finally be capped by a spine tingling thrill accompanied by a giggle. These colossal artworks also trigger playfulness in the viewer that has always been a characteristic response to the artist’s intent in creating Tromp l’oeil art. Beyond all else, this stuff certainly fits the “Popomo” credo of making hyperrealism that is unsettling to the viewer. *

Mueller’s Website includes this U-Tube video of The Crevasse (part of the Ice Age project) being created in a type of anamorphosis that allows the viewer to perceive the work in perspective at ground level, though from only one direction. The perceived hole in the earth dislocates the viewer’s impression of a solid earth thus challenging his/her sense of a secure egocentric universe.



Other works are titled Lava Burst,Waterfall, and The Cave Project. This last a series of street paintings prepared for various festivals and competitions. Below is a photograph of the Waterfall created as part of the Moose Jaw, Canada “Prairie Art Festival.” * 1

The photo below is of Mueller’s current project “Duality” from the series Unconditional Love, and is located in Moscow where he and his helpers are laboring intensely against burning eyes, noxious gases and poor visibility caused by the smog there.

There are many artists working in Tromp l’oeil street art today, but to my eye, Mueller is one of the best with these huge illusionistic imaginary spaces seemingly opened up in the middle of everyday streets all over Europe.


Notes

*Popomo – Post Post Modern

* 1 Puetz, Gabriela, E-mail with rights and permissions, 10:02 AM EDT, August 1, 2010.