Octavio Ocampo

Octavio Ocampo is the best exmplifier of using double imagery in his art work. Look at the image when you are close to the computer then step back and stand back. What do you see? How does distancing yourself from the art work change what appears?

We see that the double imagery is when images are layered on top of each other to create two different images. The distance from the viewer to artwork is the key to this illusion. From far away, we see just Don Quixote's portrait but when you look close you see Don Quioxote riding his horse through a mythological valley. It's pretty neat and you can see more of Octavio Ocampo's work if you visit his link on the previous page.

Layering is not the only way to create double images. This optical illusion is also achieved through use of negative space, odd juxtaposition, and other techniques that you can explore further.

Kenneth Noland is a artist well known for his use of color in optical art. He makes your eye focus in and out of the art work by making the viewer focus on the center of the image. What happens when you focus on the dot in the center? What happen to the colors and the lines?

As you focus on the dot at the center for a few seconds, the borders, lines, and edges, all mesh together and the images loses its whole form of lines and borders. Your eye, as it focuses, on the center point will dissolve all of the surrounding lines and colors in this illusion of color and optics. Kenneth Noland's website displays a wide range of art which is located on the previous page.

This phenomena is similar to the effects you get when looking at the sun, or getting an afterimage of colors when you stare hard and than look away. It is utilizing the adjustment time of your retinas. Use of contrasting backrounds is another popular way of tricking viewers, along with many other color-related and color vision strategies. Click on the "color vision" link to further explore the reasons WHY!

Bridget Riley is one of the most distinguished woman artist in the optical art movement. She has known to make people queasy from looking at her artwork. Is this image moving? In what direction?

The painting is actually motionless but looks as though it is moving and converging downward to the middle of the art work. She uses pattern and tightness of line work to create movement in her art work. She is well distinguished artist and you can see more of her work by clicking on her link on the previous page.

Have you ever been in a car next to a bus, and when the bus moves forward and have a feeling of backward motion, but it is only an illusion? Optics can trigger one's mind to feel movement that does not exist. This type of Op art utilizes the mind in that way. Click on the "utilizes the mind" link to further explore WHY!

Riley also uses shading along both egdes to make three-demensionality, which leads us to our next technique, 3D optics.

This section of optical arts is by far the most exciting type because it often uses combinations of the other techniques we discussed and is used most often. Using a 2 dimensional canvas to make it as though it contains an object, place, or thing which encompasses 3 dimensions. With that in mind, even a painting of a fruit that does not look flat is an optical illusion. However, in Op Art, they use this technique at more extremes such as the image by Esther to the left.

How has this head been broken down to reveal the front and the back of the head? Do the curves lend to the illusion of a whole head?

M.C. Escher is our first artist to observe and watch as his artistic creativity pushed optical art into a movement through his studies of forms and objects. He uses math of angles, curves, and cubes to create his illusions. He is one of the most well known artist of the optical illusion genre.

The artist's work to the left is Victor Vasarely's work. He was the father of the movement of "op art" during the 1950s and 1960s. He projected the idea of color, shape, and form into what is now explained to be optical art. He displays the foundations of optical art through out his paintings and carrer as an artist. By what means does he make this center of the art work change? How is it changing? What helps it to change, when you consider the different angles?

The last artist we would like to accredit for creating optical illusions is an Italian street painter by the name of Julian Beever. In his street painting, (below) notice how he looks as though he is on top of the world. The other image shows how much he had to skew the image to get this optical illusion. It's quite a feat to measure how far to skew in order to create such an optical illusion and Beever uses photography to record his success.

All of these artist can be researched and studied on the previous page. Just click a link.