What do you see? Now take a step back. Do you see something different? Oleg Shuplyak’s oil paintings capture more than meets the eye. The Ukrainian artist’s optical illusions, created through strategically placed objects, coloring, shadows, and composition, project the faces of well-known men, such as artist Salvador Dali and naturalist Charles Darwin. In one instance, what appears to be a young man and woman bathing by a lake is also the face of famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.
I do have to admit that, in some of his creations, I had to take a step closer because the faces popped out at me first. It’s only upon closer inspection that I recognized that the actual figures have contorted themselves and that the perfectly draped fabrics work cooperatively to produce the second image.
A sort of game has risen out of Shuplyak’s work where I try to find the image I don’t notice at first. In a way, his illusionary work brings back memories of Magic Eye. His pieces are quite a bit more pricey than Magic Eye ($400 and up), but if you’re interested, the artist’s paintings are currently being sold through Amsterdam Art Gallery.
