Julian Beever

Julian Beever
Julian Beever in 2011
Nationality	English
Known for	Anamorphic trompe-l'œil chalk drawings on pavement

Julian Beever (born c. 1959) is a British sidewalk chalk artist who has been creating trompe-l'œil chalk drawings on pavement surfaces since the mid-1990s. He uses a projection technique called anamorphosis to create the illusion of three dimensions when viewed from the correct angle. He preserves his work in photographs, often positioning a person within the image as if they were interacting with the scene.

Beever grew up in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, near the geographical centre of England. His talent in drawing had emerged by the time he was 5 years old; he never liked school, except for his art classes.

At the age of 16, he chose to study art, design, and psychology (as a last-minute substitute for English). He continued to excel in art, found design to be tedious, and discovered new insights into visual perception, depth perception, and the eye and brain in his psychology studies. After a gap year working as a laborer and carpet-layer's assistant, Beever enrolled in a Foundation Art course at Leicester Polytechnic, where he enjoyed experimenting with a variety of modern art forms.

He started a three-year course of study for a BA in Fine Arts at Leeds Polytechnic, but found the larger school and its self-consciously avant-garde atmosphere alienating and unsympathetic. When placed on academic probation, Beever decided to focus on traditional techniques, developing meticulous skills in portraying water surfaces. He later has said that in three years of college, he learned little that could not have acquired on his own, but he did pick up skills in pastel crayons that would become key to his later career.