Trompe L'Oeil
Murals

“The deceptive qualities of trompe l’oeil have always made it engaging, even in its most ordinary application. We have all experienced how trompe l’oeil murals “fool the eye,” whether they portray a life-like cat or other image painted on the side of a building or a panoramic landscape on the wall of a restaurant. These commonplace trompe l’oeil murals are usually seen as curious decorative pieces of perceptual trickery.

The trompe l’oeil murals of John Pugh are quite another matter. They are not merely ornamental or curiously clever. They are thought-provoking, substantial, and sometimes even philosophical or spiritual. What separates the murals of John Pugh from their less consequential cousins is that he goes beyond trompe l’oeil by combining techniques of illusion with narrative or conceptual elements and thereby not only “fools the eye” but captures the imagination and engages the mind as well.”

-Kevin Bruce, Author of The Murals of John Pugh: Beyond Trompe L’oeil, 2006