Isn’t chalk just for hopscotch?

German born artist Edgar Müller has taken something that most associate with children and made it something extraordinary. Chalk art. I know using chalk takes me back to when I was younger play hopscotch and taking turns with friends lying on the driveway outlining each other. Who had any idea that something substantial and captivating could be derived from chalk?

Müller first got interested in street art when he was 16 on his way to school, when he ran into an international competition of street painters. When he was 25 he decided that this was something that he wanted to devote his full attention to. He traveled across Europe making money with his street art and also by teaching workshops at schools. It blows my mind that in his teens he found something that he wanted to pursue. It seems like, at least in my own personal life, that finding the thing that you feel destined to do doesn’t quite come as easily as just walking to school. But without his walk to school, we would be missing out on his talent.

 The point of his art is not simply to wow people who pass by, even though that is the main emotion that they evoke. He wanted to create something that got the viewer involved by bringing something into their world that they can literally react to. It changes their environment and by interacting with the piece, the viewer changes the painting’s meaning. I think that what he does is amazing. He has taken a lot of his inspiration from Kurt Wenner and Julian Beever, also 3-D illusion painters, and created his own style. I look forward to seeing his work evolve over the following years.

 

Oh and one last thing, he is completely self-taught. Yah.

            

~ by itsartyo on October 2, 2009.