Felice Varini

Optical Installations by Felice Varini

Felice Varini is known for his geometric perspective-localized paintings in rooms and other spaces, using projector-stencil techniques. Varini’s work is really the opposite of a stereogram: a series of unintelligible figures painted across three dimensions, that when seen in just the right way, flatten themselves into a mind-bending 2D shape.

Varini is a Swiss artist who currently lives in Paris, and has done dozens and dozens of these types of installations. He thinks of his works comprehensively, not just from the single point where they come together.

“The viewer can be present in the work, but as far as I am concerned he may go through it without noticing the painting at all. If he is aware of the work, he might observe it from the vantage point and see the complete shape. But he might look from other points of views where he will not be able to understand the painting because the shapes will be fragmented and the work too abstract. Whichever way, that is ok with me.”- Felice Varini

Omar Rayo

Omar Rayo, “Xaphan”, 1968, Oil on Canvas, 66 x 66 cm, Private Collection

Omar Rayo was an Columbian artist involved in various types of artwork, such as painting, sculpture, plastic, and caricature. He was best known for using Abstract Geometry as his style. Rayo was one of the foremost pioneers of Op Art. He studied drawing at Academie Zier of Buenos Aires. He was the winner of the 1970 Salon de Artistas Colombianos. His particular focus was Op Art, also known as Optical Art, a style which employs optical illusions that interact with viewers. Op Art is considered Abstract, with many pieces made only of black-and-white. Rayo was also known to use red and other colors.

Many of the artist’s paintings, engravings, and other artworks are placed in the Museum of Rayo de Dibujo y Grabado Latinamericano, which was founded on January 20, 1981, in Colombia. The museum featured more than 2,000 of Rayo’s works as well as 500 works by other Latin artists. For most of his career, Rayo supported and tried to publicize Latin artists, with his campaigns culminating in the museum. Along with artwork, the museum features a library, theater, and graphic arts workshop. Rayo funded most of the museum himself, with the help of the Colombian government. Some of his more famous works include Sin Titula, Xumux, and Gohei V.

Insert Image: Omar Rayo, “Cinta Roja”, 1964, Oil on Canvas, 57 x 52 cm, Private Collection

Alexa Meade

Painting Installations by Alexa Meade

Alexa Meade is an American artist best known for her portraits painted on the human body. She takes a classical concept—trompe l’oeil, the art of making a two-dimensional representation look three-dimensional—and works in an opposite direction. Her aim is to collapse depth and make her living models into flat pictures. The result is walking, talking optical illusions, 3D paintings that confuse how the eye processes objects in space.

Meade applies acrylic paint to the surfaces of people, objects, and walls in a style that mimics the appearance of brushwork in a traditional painting. The three dimensional scene may be approached from multiple angles and still appear to be a flat painting through the lens of the camera, without the guise of Photoshop or digital effects.

“The effect of the optical illusion is striking. Many of the images make it nearly impossible to find visual evidence of the secret their construction” – Christian Furr, exhibition curator of the Saatchi Gallery

Optical Illusion

Optical Illusion: (An Ice Cream Cone Under a Strobe Light at 55 Hz.)

An optical illusion is characterized by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality. The information gathered by the eye is processed in the brain to give a perception that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source.

Physiological illusions, such as the afterimages following bright lights, or adapting stimuli of excessively longer alternating patterns, are presumed to be the effects on the eyes or brain of excessive stimulation or interaction with contextual or competing stimuli of a specific type—brightness, colour, position, tile, size, movement, speed, etc. That intense or repetitive activity causes a physiological imbalance that alters perception.