Tuesday, May 4, 2010

John Pugh


John Pugh is an artist who is best known for creating trompe-l’oeil paintings who are, more often than not, done on murals. His mural paintings are extremely realistic and life-like. When you look at his artwork, you really have to focus on the painting in order to find out what is real and what is not because he blends his artwork with buildings. When one observes his artwork, one would believe that it is real and would experience different emotions depending on the artwork. The people and animals that Pugh paints seem so real that you would need to touch them to find out that they are not. When the artist painted a mural that had a broken wall that led into a museum, one would believe that it was real and would have to walk straight into the wall and hit their face to find out that it is only paint. Everything he paints seems so real because it fools us into believing that it is in three-dimensional. Instead, he creates an illusion and it must be viewed with not only your eyes, but also your touch.
When an audience views his artworks, they cannot help but be intrigued because humans are naturally attracted to illusions and are fascinated by them. People can easily relate to his works because they show a sense of realism and day-to-day activity. There are no particular themes to his paintings and there is not the slight bit of abstract that is found in them. His mural paintings blend in with the building it is painted on. It matches the architectural style of the building, it blends in with the area in general where the building is located and it sometime’s has a historical meaning to it. Its scale varies depending on the wall of the building John Pugh must paint on, but they are usually life-size. If he paints a woman, she will be about the average size of a woman, but if he paints a title wave, the painting will be the actual size of a real one.
Once again, I love any artwork that has to do with realism because I feel that I can connect with the paintings, and I do not have to find the hidden message of the artwork. The simple fact that an artist can reproduce a life-like object, area or person and that they are able to trick their audience into believing that they are real fascinates me. This makes John Pugh’s one of my favourite artists, along with Ron Muek.

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