3D Pavement Art Breaks All Barriers

Conceiving believable optical illusions is never very easy, granted, but, through his work, German artist Edgar Mueller makes it seem all so simple that we get the feeling we can all pick up the brush and do it. However, upon realizing that his giant illusions are up to 250 square meters (820 square feet) in size, most of us would most likely put the paint brush down and stick to admiring his beautiful drawings. Thus far, he has covered several streets completely in his 3D art, spanning from the UK to Canada. And his imagination seems to know no limits.

For example, in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland, he has drawn a huge crevasse in the pavement, creating the very real illusion that a giant hole formed in the Earth just moments before. To make the illusion even more real, the official photos that have been released feature a man who seems about to fall from the icy cliffs.

If no background is available, one might actually think that the individual's life is at steak. However, his creation only makes sense from one perspective, as the lines that have given the drawing its “depth” are designed to be viewed from a specific point only.

“I wanted to play with positives and negatives to encourage people to think twice about everything they see. It was a very scary scene, but when people saw it they had great fun playing on it and pretending to fall into the earth. I like to think that later, when they returned home, they might reflect more on what a frightening scenario it was and say, 'Wow, that was actually pretty scary,'” the 40 year-old artist says.

The Western city of Geldern, in Germany, has had a more apocalyptic-like “make-over.” This time, the drawing looks like a river of fire and ash is spilling down an otherwise peaceful street, with a family trapped on an island of tarmac, trying to get themselves and their dog across. The illusion is highly vivid, even though, at some points in the drawings, cars decorate the sides of the road on which the scene has been painted.

The drawing in Germany has been made as a commemoration of the 30th anniversary of an international competition of street painters, which happens in the city every year. In fact, Mueller himself admits to being influenced by the British “Pavement Picasso” Julian Beever, another 3D artist that has been featured in articles published in the Daily Mail newspaper.

A video of the drawing in Ireland can be viewed here.