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Kurt Wenner, is the inventor of 3D pavement art, a master artist, architect and sculptor. He lectures and gives workshops worldwide.

Entablature Design

Posted on October 13, 2012 by adminMay 1, 2015

This drawing is an architectural detail of a very elaborate residence called the Villa Tramontana. For the interiors and exteriors of this project I created hundreds of individual designs which were then composited into larger images. I created the unique architectural details as full size measured plans for the villa, ready to be sculpted and cast. Interior ceiling decorations were also designed to scale for the residence and therefore were ready for production.

Villa Tramontana’s floor plan is symmetrical and centralized, with a total living space of approximately 10,000 square feet. The main level consists of a grand foyer, living room, dining room and library all in an open floor plan. A central corridor leads to a kitchen and family room in one wing of the residence, and the master bedroom, bath and dressing room in are in a separate wing. The lower level consists of guest bedrooms, service and utility rooms, garages, and a convenient covered entrance.

The villa’s design and all the details are completely original, though inspired by 16th century Roman Late Renaissance architecture. The villa was never executed for the original client so the designs are available for anyone who wants a grand residence! For more images, click here, or on the picture below:

The entablature design is also available as a limited edition print on my online store. Click here for more information. I also offer workshops on architectural design and proportioning. Click here for a description.

Terpsichore

Posted on October 13, 2012 by adminMay 2, 2015

One of the nicest experiences I have had was during the Kennedy Center Imagination Celebration. I was invited to create a work for this large open-air family celebration. My involvement also included working with different schools in the Washington D.C.- Baltimore- Virginia area to train children for the event, which included pavement art that year. I had developed a 2-day school residency art program working in conjunction with the Music Center’s Education Department. The program was available to schools throughout the United States. In the end, I taught drawing with pastels to more than 100,000 students from elementary school through university level over the course of a decade and for this I was Awarded The Kennedy Center Medallion in recognition for outstanding contribution to arts education.

The event also included a one-man show of drawings, including many that I did for the festival composition. The theme was Apollo and the muses. I was not a 3D work, but used an attenuated wide-angle perspective I was experimenting with at the time. The figure of Terpsichore is in the center- back of the composition. The painted version actually ended up being smaller than the drawing. The drawing is available as a limited edition print from my online store. Click here for more information.

Madonna and Child

Posted on October 13, 2012 by adminMay 2, 2015

I created this work for a kind of project one never hears about. In Italy there are many, many paintings from different centuries in need of restoration. There are also many “falsi”, (meaning counterfeit paintings). What I never knew before I lived in Italy was that old paintings are in all different states of decay. Some paintings merely need cleaning or a couple of cracks filled. Others are missing important details, (such as heads), entirely. There is no actual rule as to how much of the painting can be repainted before it is considered an actual antique as opposed to a fake. Some of the shops that do this kind of restoration are so good that it takes a real connoisseur to tell what has been painted in and what is original. The canvas is of course real, as is much of the paint. Sometimes at antique shows some of the gallery owners give themselves away by using the same “restorer” on a number of different works from different times. If they are hung together there is a suspiciously similar quality to the works.

Serious restorers use a technique of painting in the missing parts with tiny vertical lines so that with a magnifying glass one can plainly see the original from the restoration. For this work I was asked to recreate an image from a canvas where only the feet were plainly visible. The top area of the canvas was a mere shadow and nobody knew what it looked like. I only did the drawing for the project and have never seen the “restoration”. The drawing is gridded lightly as we did in the day in order to transfer the information from what remained of the original to the paper, and then back again to the canvas.

I am offering a limited edition of this image as fine arts prints. Click here for the link to my online store.

Arabian Battle

Posted on October 13, 2012 by adminMay 2, 2015

I did this drawing for a series of murals that were to be executed in fired ceramic tile. They were to be placed at the entrance of an elegant stable that housed award winning Arabian horses. The client changed residences, so the works were never completed, although I eventually did a ceramic mural on another subject for the new residence.

Villa Te

Posted on October 13, 2012 by adminMay 2, 2015

The Villa Te was designed for clients who lived where there were strict restrictions regarding height, bulk and scale of a project. The villa was designed to remain relatively inconspicuous to the surrounding residents, yet take advantage of the panoramic views of the city and coastline.

I conceived the residence as a cluster of intertwined “temples.” The result has the appearance of a small idyllic village. The villa is a split-level residence with the living room ceiling soaring the full height of the two-storey structure. Vaulted rooms on the ground floor push up through roof gardens above to give added volume and height to the interior spaces.

The decorative language of the villa is completely original, inspired by Italian Byzantine architecture for its structure, and the Italian Early Renaissance for the details. In addition to the main house, a pool house and numerous separate guest quarters were designed for the huge property.

Click on the image or here for a portfolio of the villa with its floor plans as well as the surrounding residences.

Catching the Wave with Discovery 3D

Posted on October 12, 2012 by adminJuly 22, 2013

This work was created for the first 24-7 3D channel. Below is a description of the event by Eventrex, the great company that did the event management. When the Discovery Channel was introducing its new 3D channel 3net, they asked … Continue reading →

Resumé

Posted on October 11, 2012 by adminApril 18, 2015

PROFILE I am an American artist most known for the invention of interactive 3D pavement art illusions. My work also includes large-scale oil paintings, ceramic murals, sculptures, decorations, 3D installations, and architectural designs for public and private clients in more … Continue reading →

Dies Irae

Posted on October 11, 2012 by adminMay 2, 2015

This is possibly my most well-known image. It has been published countless times. Here the image is inserted into the graphic surround I designed as the poster for the second Santa Barbara I Madonnari Festival. I later produced a set of posters with the original 13th century poem of the Dies Irae. The poem is fairly long, but I have attached a translation here: Dies Irae Text.

Dies Irae translates as The Day of Wrath, and describes the last judgment, when the dead crawl out from the Earth to be judged. it is part of the Catholic Requiem mass and has been set to music by Mozart, Verdi and other great composers.

Below is a setting by Camille Saint-Saëns:

There is a story about the creation of the work that can be read here.

The poster was produced in a fairly large number. I am offering an archival print of it on canvas in a signed but unnumbered edition. Click here for more information.

The Ghetto

Posted on October 11, 2012 by adminMay 2, 2015

This was the third of three images I created on the theme of contemporary “hells”. This work is shown in front of a completely burnt out building of a huge nursery that was near the Garda lake in Northern Italy. The image is filled with details of all sorts of evils brought on by poverty. It is one of my personal favorites and was used on the inside cover of my book, Asphalt Renaissance.

The image is available as a limited edition print. Click here for more information.

Gluttony

Posted on October 11, 2012 by adminMay 2, 2015

This was the second of three images I created on the theme of contemporary “hells”. Gluttony does not just refer to overeating but also to the idea of consumerism. This image is shown in the Palazzo Te in Mantua. It is one of my very favorite late Renaissance, (mannerist), buildings in all of Italy. I filmed a part of the National Geographic documentary, Masterpieces in Chalk in this palazzo before it was restored. One of the scenes was in the Room of the Giants. This room is painted floor and ceiling with a continuous scene of the “battle between the gods and the giants” from classical mythology. The room is only some meters from the loggia where Gluttony is shown in this image. Near Mantua a huge shopping center had recently been built with the name “Il Gigante”. So in the image there is a pun between the “giant” shopping center, the room of the giants and the gigantic proportions of the figures in the pavement art. The image is available as a limited edition print in my website store. Click here for more information.