The City Is My Canvas

Contemporary "trompe l'oeil" artist Richard Haas transforms the drab exteriors of neglected buildings into breath-taking facades. "The City is My Canvas" documents his most important projects of the last two decades in double-page spreads which illustrate the "before" and "after" phases of each site. From Italian "Quadrata" paintings to Baroque and Rococo interiors, "trompe l'oeil" murals have a long tradition as decoration and didactic illustration. Muralist Richard Haas brings this tradition into the 21st century as he revitalizes forgotten buildings in eroding city centres by creating new "false" facades that seamlessly blend into the existing environment. "The world is constantly changing, and the needs of the city change with it", says Haas. "Even if blank urban walls at key locations of the city are now primarily seen as opportunities for computer-generated advertizements, whole segments of the mid-range urban American landscape and large areas of our edge cities remain in drastic need of refinement, softening and improvement".