Kurt Wenner: An American Artist

When I was in my sophomore year of high school, my art teacher Mrs. Samally opened my eyes to many different types of art forms throughout the world. One form of art that particularly caught my eye, was the art of 3-D chalk drawings on street canvasses. The way that these artists can portray depth and realism in their art work just baffles me. They can create masterpieces with chalk that I didn’t even think was ever possible before. The artist who predominantly stood out to me the most is an American artist who goes by the name of Kurt Wenner. Kurt was born on June 22, 1971 in Ann Arbor, Michigan (Wenner). Kurt throughout his childhood showed a passion for art and for the great beyond. Before completing high school Kurt produced his first mural, …show more content…
However three-dimensional street chalk drawings can be traced all the way back to the early to mid-eighties when Kurt lived in Italy (Wenner). While he was there, he applied what he learned and saw around Italy into his work. He first saw street chalk art on an Italian street and was offered to paint the head of an angel, and the rest is history (Wenner). By practicing his artwork on Italy streets, he gained a lot of experience, which helped him achieve what he is known for today. No one else has ever thought to combine classical illusion skills of the earlier times with the modern street art medium. He was ultimately a genius for this discovery. Eventually, in 1984, Kurt Wenner invented his own form of art with the use of perspective (Wenner). Kurt became very fascinated by the Sistine chapel and Michelangelo’s magnificent mural on the ceiling. The anamorphism of the fresco on the ceilings of the chapel gives the painting the misconception of height (Wenner). Constantly visiting and studying this mural sparked his thought process of how the way things are viewed. Kurt used perspective to fool the viewer’s eye into believing that his artwork was actually three dimensional. He called this type of geometry, Wenner’s hyperbolic perspective; which is basically a fancy way of saying optical illusion (Wenner). His art work can trick you into believing that there is a 200 foot deep …show more content…
Any kind of medium, you name it. Kurt has studied or has worked with it. With the mind and abilities that he had, anything in the art world was possible for him to pursue. Kurt also showed a big interest in the architecture of the buildings while he was over in Rome. He would sketch these buildings and add his own touches to them, so most of his architectural creations resembled the older and more European style of structure (Wenner). Kurt would sketch every single little detail from top to bottom for the building that he would create. From the details on the molding to the door knobs, he was very specific to the details that he would put in. Just like in his art work (Wenner). Kurt found that architecture is a work of art too just like a painting. Mr. Wenner has traveled all over the world to about 30 different countries to show off his art and set up street art festivals. Kurt has been setting up art shows and festivals since he was in Rome in the mid-eighties (Wenner). There are now over a hundred different street art festivals around the world. Over the last three decades, Kurt helped grow the world of street art and three-dimensional art. Now there are over a thousand unique artists who took their own pathways in this form of art. Kurt had an amazing career in art and inspired many in a lot of different ways. He would later