Pavement Art

Julian Beever

Whilst looking through a newspaper that had been left on my train seat, I came across this ‘pavement artist’, Julian Beever. He is a graduate of Fine Art at the University of Leeds and uses only two instruments to create his pieces – a camera lens and a box of chalks. The technique that he employs is known as ‘trompe l’oeil’ which is French for ‘trick the eye’.

In order to create the work, he has to look through a camera lens at the pavement to visualise the 3D space that he will attempt to create and get the right proportions. The process of creating just one of his drawings is an extremely long one as the next step is to carefully plot out the drawing which in effect simply plays tricks on the way peoples’ minds read perspective. He states that objects that are closer will seem larger, so exaggerating the size of some of the elements within the picture will create the illusion that parts of it are lower than the ground.

The first picture originated when Julian noticed a rectangle of slabs which triggered the idea of converting the slabs into a virtual swimming pool. After the success of this drawing, he experimented with people falling into a well and developing his work even further by not only creating illusions of people falling into things, but of things appearing to stand out of the pavement.

Each of his drawings must be viewed from one special viewpoint or else the illusion of his drawings will be lost and they take on average a total of three days to do depending on the complexity.

This image shows how his work would look if viewed from the incorrect angle.

This image is an example of how his finished drawings look when viewed from the correct angle.

Julian says “Art isn’t meant to be caged in galleries – it’s for everyone. Why spend your time doing piles of bricks in the Tate Gallery or pickle sheep in formaldehyde? This is what people enjoy”. This is obviously a controversial statement and begs the question, what IS art? I do agree with making art more accessible to the public, and pavement art is rather unusual thus drawing more attention to it. Having an interest in art myself, I take it upon myself to seek out galleries that may be of interest to me but unfortunately there are still many people who come across as being very naïve when it comes to art. Many people are still unaware of the fact that the Tate Modern is free to visit and I feel that not enough is being done to draw attention to this.

I think the work is so intriguing by attempting to involve the viewer in such a realistic way and can be used further in other design work. The work is so realistically three dimensional but on a two dimensional surface, an effect that is so often attempted but rarely met in a successful way. The fact that these drawings only work when viewed from a specific angle is also a fascinating requirement for design work. Very rarely are angles considered when making something such as a billboard or poster and if they are they are not considered as concisely as they are in Julian’s work.

Obviously, Julian must have to get permission to create his art in public spaces like he does, but it opens up the opportunities for the use of different or unusual media to create designs on. It emphasises the fact that art or design does not need to be limited to ‘pen and paper’ but that opportunities are endless. Depending on the tone of voice that you wish to achieve, it is interesting to experiment with mark making on different materials, be it natural or man-made.

Another thing that I find interesting is the fact that Julian spends so much time and effort on these drawings, yet he knows that the life-span of his creations are limited due to the forces of nature. The rain frequently washes his work away so his drawings have to be treasured whilst they are there otherwise they only exist as photographs. This is one of the reasons that the only publicity that Julian gets for his work is over the internet which could obviously be a good thing as the internet is becoming an ever increasing way to communicate with people all over the world.

Julian’s creations are so unique and refreshing and they allow the public to interact with them thus getting them involved in ‘art’. I think the public should take more interest in ALL types of art, whether they agree with it or not.

(Sunday Mirror, May 2007)

For links to Julian's work; http://www.rense.com/general67/street.htm and http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm