JOHN PUGH

 

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SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture -by Gautam Shah

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John Pugh (born 1957) is an American artist, who creates murals that give illusionistic architectural scenes. He creates illusion (Trompe-l'œil =French for 'deceive the eye) of 3D image on wall.

Pugh depicts the wall, as being opened and the surface like skin folded outward. His works are often called ‘Narrative Illusionism.’

Pugh offers the simultaneity of interior-exterior and reality-illusion, while scaling as well as descaling the wall and the building. He recalls the dream ‘where the wall broke open and it showed the columns’.

Pugh has been creating such murals since the late 1970s is United States, Canada, Mexico, Barbados, Japan, Taiwan, and New Zealand. He has produced more 250 murals in 30 years.

Pugh states that creating a ‘sense of place’ is paramount and for this, he conceptually includes ‘historical, environmental, and cultural viewpoints of the location’. His themes and the treatment are mundane and create ‘a pride for the place’.

The wall art in Trompe-l'œil (French for 'deceive the eye) style. These began in Baroque period (16-17th C) to mainly paint ceilings. It created illusion of the sky and integrated the upper section of interior architecture with the theme or story line of artwork. Since then many artworks from little cards to wall murals have been created. In the past few decades floor based Trompe-l'œil have been created offering depressions, protrusions and textures through manipulation of pattern and colour have been created. 

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