Would You Walk Down These Streets?

Edgar Mueller. Hard work: Together with up to five assistants, Mueller painted all day long from sunrise to sunset.


The picture appeared on the East Pier in Dun Laoghaire , Ireland , as part of the town's Festival of World Cultures.

He spent five days, working 12 hours a day, to create the 250 square metre image of the crevasse, which, viewed from the correct angle, appears to be 3D. He then persuaded passers-by to complete the illusion by pretending the gaping hole was real. 'I wanted to play with positives and negatives to encourage people to think twice about everything. They see,' he said. 'It was a very scary scene, but when people saw it they had great fun playing on it and pretending to fall into the earth. 'I like to think that later, when they returned home, they might reflect more on what a frightening scenario it was and say, "Wow, that was actually pretty scary"...'

Mueller, who has previously painted a giant waterfall in Canada , said he was inspired by the British 'PavementPicasso' Julian Beever, whose dramatic but more gentle 3D street images have featured in the Daily Mail.