Portugal-born muralist Sergio Odeith is known for dazzling with his optical illusions created on walls across the world. He first emerged as a practitioner in the graffiti movement in the 1990s, before turning his interest to toying with how his subjects can subvert expectations from viewers.
Pretty much every kid loves playing with cardboard boxes. Taiwanese photographer and graphic designer Sydney Sie never stopped playing with them. Her series “Unexpectable Boxes” captures the essence of our childhood pretending in surprising and surreal photographs. In bold candy colors, her images reveal her subjects’ faces, fingers and feet peeking out of holes in artificial spaces built by Sie.
Op art works are abstract, and while mostly in black and white, UK artist Carl Cashman usually infuses his with clashing neon colors. Using geometry and optical illusion, his works depict hidden symbols and movement, as in bold patterns that appear to flex and warp. Cashman (covered here) enhances these qualities with a style that he calls “Neometry”. Unlike completely abstracted art, which bears no trace of anything recognizable, Cashman’s sees his art as a sort of biography. The inspiration behind his latest series of acrylic works, titled “An Edited Version of Life”, references moments in his daily life.
There’s a secret to looking at Dutch chalk artist Leon Keer’s whimsical largescale drawings on the street. At ground level, one might mistake his puddle of melting gummy bears mourning their friend, ghosts chasing Pacman through a maze, or the excavation of a terracotta army of lego-men for abstract works of art. As in his latest piece created for the Malta Street Art Festival in July, which can only be seen from 10 meters high, you have to be in just the “right” spot.
Italian artist Luca Luce began his creative career as a designer, before eventually settling into the field of makeup art. The profession attracted him for its opportunities to create beauty and give other people a form of security. Now, turning the brush onto himself, Luce uses his creative skills to make optical illusions out of his left hand. Using well known cosmetic brands as his medium, he paints realistic pictures with a skewed perspective that can only be appreciated by the wearer. His illustrations portray things like small animals sleeping in the palm of his hand, pulled back skin to reveal electrical outlets, animated characters like Jack Skellington, and other combinations of fantasy and horror.
The shape of a church is indefinitely sketched into the landscape in the latest project by architecture duo, Gijs Van Vaerenbergh. Comprised of Belgian architects Pieterjan Gijs and Arnout Van Vaerenbergh, their series of see-through churches, “Reading Between the Lines,” are not intended to be functional as shelter. They are more like sculptures that borrow design inspiration from local churches’ architecture in the area. See more after the jump!