This is my latest painting. It is painted in water soluble graphite and acrylic on canvas. Size 120cm x 160cm. Originally a small sketch, it was called ‘The Damned’. I would like to find a better name so if anyone out there has a suitable suggestion I would be most pleased to hear it. The painting is for sale (contact me on info@artist-gavinmayhew.co.uk for price) or prints from A4 to A2 sizes are available.

the face of the Devil

The lunar playground is finally complete! At last a place that is as strange and awesome and demented as humanity has been constructed. The playground encompasses the entire moon. It is filled with tunnels, mirrors, puzzles, moving parts, and optical illusions. However, most amazing of all is the lunar slide. The lunar slide is a series of tubes, sort of like the internet, that go from the moon down to thousands of different locations on earth. It is an experience like no other.

A couple of brilliant optical illusions, source unknown…

- Click to embiggen -

Goblet Portraits 1977

ArtistsinAuction

The work of Zeke Berman demonstrates a truly unique eye in the world of photography. We are truly grateful to have such a talented artist on board, partaking in our upcoming auction.

Berman has honed his craft over the last 35 years, producing singular, studio-based photographs that reflect his long-standing interest in visual cognition and optics.

His work has evolved much over the years but always explores an intersection between sculpture, photography and drawing.

From the outset Berman received strong critical acclaim. His work has been collected, published and exhibited in galleries and museums such as MoMA, The Metropolitan, The Whitney, and Art Institute of Chicago. He has been featured in the first New Photography Exhibition at MoMA and has received multiple awards, including the Guggenheim, NEA and NYFA Arts Fellowships.

In the beginning

As a kid, Berman loved sculpture. He attended the High School of Music and Art and studied sculpture at the Philadelphia College of Art. He only backed into photography after graduating. To date he approaches photography as a studio based art and his sculptural training clearly plays an important part in his working process.

During his years in art school, conceptual art and minimalism were a fresh aspect of contemporary art. At that time, Berman began a developing fascination in perception theory -  a lifelong interest that involves questions of cognition, optical illusion and the evolution of the senses. The idea that an illusion can change in appearance,  right before our eyes, is equally fascinating and inspiring to him.

His study found its way into his working process when he began to experiment with a camera in the studio. Berman’s epiphany came when he discovered a deep mystery and possibility in the transformation of a three-dimensional construction into a two-dimensional photograph.

A cumulative process

The formal range of Berman’s work and his sculptural use of materials is varied, original and idiosyncratic. All his pieces are intricately designed and constructed in his studio.

Berman uses a 4X5 studio view camera  to create all his photography. The procedure is an old one that delivers extremely sharp, and clear prints, as well as images that are very realistic in the description of the materials used. The end result is often a photograph designed from a construction but with the appearance of a drawing.

His process is cumulative in nature – he makes photographic sketches constantly as he constructs and reconstructs, creating many, images as the work evolves. Intuition and spontaneity ensue throughout the process. We asked him how he knows when he has finally completed a piece.  His answer is that it simply feels complete.

Optical illusion

In the late 1970’s Berman had a direct interest in creating different kinds of illusion. His work from this period clearly demonstrates optical illusion and the transformation of three-dimension into two-dimension.

“Cup with Objects” from 1979 is a great example of 3D/2D play. All the objects fill up the frame up to the edge, however, one slight shift of the camera and the pieces wouldn’t work together.

Cup with Objects

“Web,” a piece from the late 80’s contains an actual spider web. It is a very linear, abstract work, and one that clearly depicts the flow from drawing to sculpture to photography. In fact, much of his work from this time period was very linear in nature.

Web

Later pieces demonstrate the evolution and progression in his photography.

Take for example “Shoe and Tire,” a 1993 commission piece for Progressive Corporation, an auto insurance company. The company CEO is an avid art collector and commissioned Berman to create a suite of still life’s around which the company’s Annual Report was designed. He won several design awards for this work.

Shoe and Tire

“Heart,” created in 1995 was commissioned by graphic designer Mark Schwartz for his daughter who was born on Valentine’s day.

Heart

Although Berman rarely photographs people, “Standing Stack” from 1997 was made at a time when he wished to bring more human presence into his work.

Standing Stack

Berman lives and works in NYC. He now works mostly in color, a new turn in his evolving body of work.

To view the ArtistsinAuction website click here.

To view more of  Zeke Berman’s work, click here.

Plant Slice 1999

Fat Lamp and Cherry Blossoms 2008

P. 91   11/20/09

Sorry readers. This is like the first time ever that I have writer’s block and seriously can’t think of anything decent to write. I guess it was bound to happen. I do think it’s impressive though that I’ve gone 11 months before succumbing to this annoying void of thoughts. But it’s a Friday, so I feel that that’s a little more forgivable.

So instead I am bringing you this optical illusion. How is this an illusion, you ask? Well it seems that the green and the blue stripes in this image are actually the same color. They are both the same color as the colored box at the bottom. The arrows point to the places where the green/blue stripes intersect with the box. When you look closely, you can see that when merged into the box, the stripes are actually the same color as the box. Freaky, right? This is explained to us because our brain perceives colors by what is next to them. Thus, the pink color creates a blue tint and the orange color creates a green tint in our brains.

Emergence of images  refers to the unique human ability to aggregate information from seemingly meaningless pieces, and to perceive a whole that is meaningful. This special skill of humans can constitute an effective scheme to tell humans and machines apart. This paper presents a synthesis technique to generate images of 3D objects that are detectable by humans, but difficult for an automatic algorithm to recognize. The technique allows generating an infinite number of images with emerging figures. Our algorithm is designed so that locally the synthesized images divulge little useful information or cues to assist any segmentation or recognition procedure. Therefore, as we demonstrate, computer vision algorithms are incapable of effectively processing such images. However, when a human observer is presented with an emergence image, synthesized using an object she is familiar with, the figure emerges when observed as a whole. We can control the difficulty level of perceiving the emergence effect through a limited set of parameters. A procedure that synthesizes emergence images can be an effective tool for exploring and understanding the factors affecting computer vision techniques.

Deformscape is a creative and slightly dizziness-inducing optical illusion in the backyard of a private residence in San Francisco.

via Boing Boing

Untitled (magician and cape)

ArtistsinAuction

The collages of Tom Smith are optically stimulating and complex – viewers are often hypnotized by his mesmerizing work. So, we were eager to learn more about our featured artist’s creativity and the ways in which he developed his unique craft.

It turns out that Smith has art in his blood – his mother is an accomplished decorative artist and his father has a deep appreciation of the arts. So it was no wonder that he followed in the same footsteps. In fact, never once did he entertain the notion of doing anything in life that was non-creative.

Smith studied art in Baltimore, close to his hometown in Maryland, and majored in illustration due to his strong interest in narrative work and storytelling. He went on to graduate school to further pursue his metier. Half-way through his studies a light bulb went off in his head as he realized he had something definitive he wanted and needed to share with others.

The turning point

Fine artist and printmaker, Carroll Dunham, whom Smith assisted when he first moved to New York, was the most influential person in his early career. Carroll stripped down all of Tom’s work and forced him to focus strictly on drawing (he spent an entire year devoted to this particular craft).

As a result, Smith became more introspective and was able to move into the subconscious, channeling human interest into his pieces versus the other way around. After that significant one year period, he finally understood his creative sensibilities.

To date, all of Smith’s work is drawing based, whether he is painting, sculpting, photographing or making collages. He expects that his drawing will evolve to other forms of new media in the not too distant future.

Superhero meditation

Smith’s collages emerged directly from his massive collection of superheroes – comic books, figurines, etc. The idea was to meld character images and witness the optical illusions he was able to produce. In fact, he discovered that a character could be completely transformed through the introduction of another image.

His process is equally transformative. The meticulous skill involved, although highly technical, is extremely repetitive and, therefore, exceedingly meditative. At first he is in control, but soon control flies out the window as he begins to manipulate images. A discovery element is always present as he never is quite sure what will emerge.

Color theory and the work of Josef Albers also play a large part in Smith’s collage work. All the pieces are based on the intermeshing of colors and the appearance of images as a consequence of color selection and interaction.

Take Untitled (red, yellow, blue), one of the first pieces he designed. Smith decided to create a collage based on the primary colors of red, yellow and blue – the three opposite sides of the color spectrum. Poring through the hundreds of images in his possession, he had to uncover three images that not only bore the requisite colors but were also standing upright. Combining them, he was able to create a figurative piece with the characters in the middle, successfully intersecting Minimalist art with Contemporary art.

Untitled (red, yellow, blue)

Untitled (magenta) is equally illusionary. In this work, we witness a woman with minimal clothing represented in a very special way as her image is placed among a field of pinks and magentas.

Untitled (magenta)

In Untitled (bird and gun) we see two women, one holding a bird, the other, a gun, both with identical background colors. The resulting image is the appearance of two individuals in one space, despite the fragmentation. The piece has been pushed into a very simplistic direction, yet can be very disorienting to the viewer.

Untitled (gun and bird)

Smith’s collage work has been very influential to his other work. For example, collage, which is two-dimensional, naturally transcended into sculpture, which is three-dimensional. He tells us that he is getting ready to produce an entirely new body of work, utilizing figurative aspects, yet in the realm of the landscape.

Tom currently lives and works in New York City and has the unique opportunity to be working full-time in a studio assisting a number of established artists. He admits his good fortune and loves that he is always learning new techniques and staying “au courant,” not to mention extremely motivated. Plus, he gets to feed on the creative energy when he uses the studio for his own work at night and on weekends.

We invite you to peer into the hypnotic and magnetic work of a very talented artist.

To view the ArtistsinAuction website click here.

To view more of Tom Smith’s work, click here.

Untitled (double vision)

This is an interesting optical illusion associated with the chop cup trick.

From Vimeo:

PHOTO’S flickr.com/photos/43038809@N02/

Making of - vimeo.com/6858264

An optical illusion (also called a visual 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 percept that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source. There are three main types: literal optical illusions that create images that are different from the objects that make them, physiological ones that are the effects on the eyes and brain of excessive stimulation of a specific type (brightness, tilt, color, movement), and cognitive illusions where the eye and brain make unconscious inferences. there are most types of illusions but mainly ebbinghaus,ponzo,necker and illusory motion illusions are known commonly.

Ebbinghaus illusion

In the best-known version of the illusion, two circles of identical size are placed near to each other and one is surrounded by large circles while the other is surrounded by small circles; the first central circle then appears smaller than the second central circle at Figure.1.

 Figure.1. The two orange circles are exactly the same size; however, the one on the left seems smaller.

Ponzo illusion

The Ponzo illusion is an optical illusion that was first demonstrated by the Italian psychologist Mario Ponzo (1882-1960) in 1913. He suggested that the human mind judges an object’s size based on its background. He showed this by drawing two identical lines across a pair of converging lines, similar to railway tracks. The upper line looks longer because we interpret the converging sides according to linear perspective as parallel lines receding into the distance. In this context, we interpret the upper line as though it were farther away, so we see it as longer – a farther object would have to be longer than a nearer one for both to produce retinal images of the same size.

Figure.2. An example of the Ponzo Illusion. Both horizontal lines are the same size.

Necker Cube

The impossible cube or irrational cube is an impossible object that draws upon the ambiguity present in a Necker Cube illustration. An impossible cube is usually rendered as a Necker Cube in which the edges are apparently solid beams. This apparent solidity gives the impossible cube greater visual ambiguity than the Necker Cube, which is less likely to be perceived as an impossible object. The illusion plays on the human eye’s interpretation of two-dimensional pictures as three-dimensional objects.

Figure.3. Viewed from a certain angle, this cube appears to defy the laws of geometry.

Illusory motion

The term illusory motion, also known as motion illusion, is used to define the appearance of movement in a static image. This is an optical illusion in which a static image appears to be moving due to the cognitive effects of interacting color contrasts and shape position.

Other Figures For Optical Illusion

**Try to count the number of black dots on the image below…

**Are the lines below straight or are they curved?

**How many legs does this elephant have?

**What do you see below?

    A lady or a musician? See both?

**The numbers 0 through 9 using only 8’s and 4’s!
 

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Besar mana kedua orang ini ?

Panjang mana bagian kiri dibandingkan bagian kanan garis ?

Dua sisi pembelajaran……

Berapa kaki gajah di bawah ini …..?

Stare at the tiny black dot until the countdown ends. The perfect colorization of the b&w image is cool.

eye lens

Eye Lens

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No matter what I do, I can’t seem to learn the exact limits of my car! And because 5 years ago a parking attendant told me to go back, and I trusted him and went back and ended up hitting the car behind me, I don’t ever trust parking attendants. But I know I need to work on this distance optical thing. Now I’m not sure if defining the car limits is really related to gender, but at least I’m fully aware that I do NOT know the limits of my car. And here’s a nice song to brighten up your Monday (More Than Words, Extreme), Enjoy!

(I MIGHT be slow in posting during this week because I have sooooo much to do [lecture+workshop-CC presentation-CCF exhibition- work], so please forgive me, I promise you’ll be on my mind all the time!) So here’s another song to express the situation I’m in (Under Pressure, Queen & David Bowie)

I can make a Murs hat more famous than a Murs can…

An interesting public art installation in Vercorin, Switzerland by artist Felice Varini that turns the whole village into an optical illusion, by painting white sections on various houses along the hillside.

More at Been Seen.

Via EDMW:

Male and female may see things differently here

Fyi – the girl at the back got wear pants hor, look carefully. If you somehow see it differently, congratulations – you have been tested to have chee ko pek tendency! :p

Technorati Tags: optical illusion, what is wrong with this picture, optical illusion girl without panties, optical illusion naked butt, optical illusion exposed butt, optical illusion butt crack, male female optical illusion, chee ko pek

Hello, HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Well, This The First Halloween I’ve Done Here So I’m Going To Try To Make It The Best…To Kick it Off Here’s A Really Funny Comic :]

haha! Now Here Are Some Halloween-ish Videos From Youtube!

Haha! I Liked The Treak or Treat Rap!

~Jaaayy

Dont believe your lying eyes