One of the things I like about running this site is finding people who create Op Art in a totally original and unique way – for example Orang Vahid who produces stunning Op Art pieces using only the ‘draw’ utility within Microsoft Word.  Jaka Bonča fits this category of artists; all of his art is created using fonts that he has created himself.  Jaka calls it ‘Fine Art Typesetting’ and his art ‘Modular Ornamental Typography’.

Did you study art? If so, where?
I was originally trained as an architect. I have a Bachelors degree, Masters (of Science) and PhD in architecture from the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia.  At present I am very much involved in the ‘theory of art’ and am teaching Presentational Techniques, Theory of Art and Design Concepts at the University of Ljubljana.

Why do you like Op Art?
Op Art is clean. The visual elements are there as elements in themselves without taking on any meaning from literature or music or similar. My preference within Op Art is for flat images with as little illusion of the third dimension as possible.

How do you make your art?
I started making geometrical drawings long before PCs were common and something that everybody had.  I was always very interested in computers but they were not accessible, so instead I tried to think like a computer myself. Initially I drew all my drawings by hand with a rapidograph and a ruler. I wanted a computer-generated or computer-processed drawing, but since I didn’t have a computer, like I said, I began to think like a computer instead. This way of thinking does not allow for visual corrections. Consequently, the relationships between the elements in the drawing are exactly the way they are. They are not concealed, which is achieved subconsciously when drawing by hand.  At a later point in time, when the opportunity arose, I started using computers.  In retrospect, I added text that speaks about my thoughts triggered by the drawings. But this is only a small proportion of all my thoughts. I designed linear drawings without any illusion of the third dimension. Nevertheless, every composition could be translated into sculpture.

What’s the process for making one of your artworks?
I make a font first.  This is a predicted set of basic shapes with predefined spaces in-between – kerning and leading. Each shape is assigned to a key on a keyboard. Fonts are mostly monospace – all the elements are of the same width.  I started with Fontographer, cross-graded to Fontlab and lately I have started working with Glyphs.  What follows is »typesetting«.  I type text like I am typing a mathematical formula: »letters« with superscript (exponents) and subscript. In the last few years I have started using a pre-typed text too and solved Sudokus (Japanese crossword puzzles) – you can see more of this on my website.  For typesetting I was initially using Quark X Press but have recently started working with InDesign.

Any other art you like and other artists that inspire or have inspired you.
I prefer abstract, non-representational art, typography and modern music from Iannis Xenakis – with his mathematical approach using Markov Sequences.

Anything else you like doing, anything else you want to say generally?
I am interested in »primary« knowledge – mathematics. I find that very inspiring. Not the visual representation of mathematics but the way it is used to solve problems. Basically there were two teachers who influenced me most. The first was the painter Drago Hrvacki.  I attended courses he ran from childhood and met him later whilst studying at the university. The second was the mathematician Josip Globevnik, my professor at the university.

You can find out more about Jaka’s work on his fascinating website: www.rototype.org

Joanna Potratz, who lives and works in Poland, started creating her art in a difficult period in her life in which she was unhappy and out of work.  Sitting down with just a pencil, ruler, fountain pen and paper she started creating geometric black and white pieces.  At that time she says she had no experience of Op Art; the ideas and style just came to her and it wasn’t until much later that she realised that what she was drawing would be called Op Art.

Joanna says: “Each image took several hours of intensive manual work…  Often I didn’t have any firm idea about the final effect before the piece was finished, so I was often surprised by what that effect was.”

Joanna didn’t study art formally, just finishing ‘typical college’.  “I did all my works not knowing what style of art it was – in the same way Molier’s Monsieur Jourdain didn’t know he spoke in prose.”  Now 38, Joanna has been creating Op Art for the past 20 years.

“I didn’t have an internet or computer until last year so I was not very well informed.  It was only when I got online that I realised what it was that I had been drawing for the past 20 years!  I work on A4 Bristol paper sheets of using a compass (drafting), a ruler, a pencil and a black ink fountain pen only. When I have an idea for a new image I take a pencil and ruler and start to sketch it out.  The next stage involves filling in the fields with a fountain pen.  Any little mistake disqualifies the piece and means I have to start again from beginning which can be a very frustrating process.”

“I had no inspiration from other artists simply because didn’t know any until last year when I discovered Op Art.  Since then my interest in the art of others has grown and I often visit art galleries.”

“My long time love is astronomy and watching the sky.  I love seeing a sun dog (parhelia) or other halo. The colours of the sky near the sea in North Poland where I live are the most beautiful art I have ever seen.”

If you would like to contact Joanna, you can email her on joannapotratz@tlen.pl

Widely considered as a leading authority on visual perception, Gianni Sarcone has written numerous books on topics ranging from optical illusions through to visual and critical thinking (see below for links), so we are absolutely delighted and honoured to be able to feature some of his work on the site.

In recent years, Gianni has acted as a juror at the Third Annual “Best Visual Illusion of the Year” contest in Sarasota, Florida (USA).  In 2011 , his optical illusion project “Mask of Love” was named in the top 10 best optical illusions in the “Best Illusion of the Year Contest” (Naples, Florida, USA).

“The function of art is an extension of the function of the brain – the seeking of knowledge in an ever-changing world.” (Semir Zeki)

Did you study art?

I didn’t ‘study’ art, I’ve been PRACTICING art since I was very young (around 2 years old).  I come from a family of artists: my father is a painter, my uncle was a renown sculptor, my grand-parents were painters… My youth was filled with colours, turpentine, brushes, and rich visual experiences.  Art is for me as natural as a second skin.

Why do you like Op Art?

Op Art is short for Optical Art. In fact, the essence of Op Art is to play with our optic nerves to create the illusion of colours, dimensions and motion.  Blank spaces, negative spaces, XOR spaces, interspaces, interferences, aliasing, repetitive geometric textures are the palette the Op Artist uses to create pulsating, rotating, or kinetic visual effects.

But Op Art isn’t only based on repetitive patterns that alternate optical contrasts (clear/dark, vertical/horizontal, straight/oblique, thick/thin, and so on), it is mostly a type of research that tries to achieve the maximum visual effect with the most minimal intervention. Some Op Art paintings are in fact both simple and effective.

I like Op Art because it involves a lot of study: you have first to understand how our neural mechanism of vision works, and then to unceasingly investigate new mediums and techniques in the field of visual design to achieve the best optical effects.

How do you make your art? What’s the process for making one of your artworks?

I have a very independent mind that pushes me to be creative everyday. Anything I see, read or touch, like movies, art exhibitions, newspapers, magazines, internet – while walking in the street or even when I am cooking for a crowd – are the beginnings for visual ideas. My main tool for catching these ideas is a pocket notebook I always carry with me.

I don’t make my art with a computer, software or any other material, I make it first with ideas. What interests me is the final impact. So, I don’t care about the media as such, because I am skilled in any art medium or in any old or current graphic editor.

All my work is based on the same essential principle: awaken curiosity.

Any other art you like and other artists that inspire or have inspired you.

I like in general modern art and I am very eclectic in my preferences: I appreciate Joan Mirò, Alexander Calder, Jean Tinguely, Kasimir Malevitch, Lucio Fontana, Georg Baselitz, Daniel Spoerri, and even Odilon Redon…  In short, I take inspiration from any artist who strongly puzzles me.  Besides Op Art, The Bauhaus School and Suprematism are probably the art movements that most resonate within me.

Anything else you like doing or you want to say?

I am an adept of the ‘wabi-sabi’ aesthetic, I like simplicity and raw sincerity in every branch of art. My preferred quote is: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

I am also a devoted martial artist and am an expert practitioner of Taekwondo and Ju-Jitsu.

A selection of books by Gianni Sarcone on Amazon.co.uk:

See all books by Gianni Sarcone on Amazon.co.uk
Books by Gianni Sarcone on Amazon.com
You can find out more about Gianni Sarcone and see more of his work on his website.

To see some of Gianni’s excellent Valentine’s day Op Art, see here.

CVADRAT (which means ‘square’ in non Cyrillic Russian) was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1959 and now lives in Barcelona, Spain.

Did you study art? If so, where?

No, I didn’t. In fact my attempts to do so were a complete failure for two reasons: I have no drawing skills at all (some kind of strange neurological problem? I’m almost tone deaf too) and I don’t have the patience to take six months to finish a painting.

In fact I consider myself more a graphic designer and an artisan than an artist. Many of my works are targeted to the industrial design world (textiles, wallpapers, big format renderings, books and magazines covers, etc).

Why do you like Op Art?

It is closely linked to my kind of personality. I love order and precision and Op Art have both of them BUT with a twist that cheats your eyes and brain. Precision and order are extremely significant to me concerning beauty but I find very refreshing that that order can “disorder” you.

How do you make your art? What’s the process for making one of your artworks?

I’m a complete computer nerd and I only do my art (if you can say that) through software. I obviously use Illustrator and Photoshop, but other radically different programs as well: Chaoscope, Apophysis, Processing, Filter Forge (as standalone), Imagemagick, Texture Maker, Pop Art Studio, Povray and many more.

Apart from Povray (which is a very different kind of beast) I don’t plan a work in advance. I experiment with existing material (mine or not) and when I find something that hits me with a particular kind of beauty, I began to randomly experiment with it, trying to find some kind of “siblings” or “cousins” of the original graphic, which have, at least, a similar kind of beauty.

I render the most promising candidates (they can be as much as sixty or eighty) and make a first selection (some kind Darwinian selection, isn’t it?).  Then, and for each of the selected forms I make a second random production with Imagemagick and some scripts I have custom made (in MS-DOS batch files). This scripts output a hundred or more variations of each of the selected graphics, so it is not uncommon that I find myself faced with the boring task of making a selection from near a thousand graphics.

Once finished this task (and having a small bunch of selected images) I make the final rendition or the final variation through Imagemagick.

It is very uncommon that I “retouch” or alter any final graphic or image.

Any other art you like and other artists that inspire or have inspired you?

My main inspiring artists are Vasarely, Riley, Sugai, Sedgley, Yvaral, Parola and many other Op Art artists.  

Besides Op Art, I must mention abstraction in general and geometric art in particular.

Other sources of inspiration (and imitation) are: Art Decó, Art Nouveau, Jugendstyl, Bauhaus (and particularly, industrial design derived from it), “International Style” architecture, Mies van der Rohe especially.

What do you do outside of your art?

I must say that my “artistic” trend is some kind of “late blossom” in life, although in some way I’ve been connected with art in general and architecture in particular, since my father was an architect.

I am a clinical psychologist and occupational therapist and I have worked as such for many, many years with high risk patients. Besides that, I have worked as a professional antique furniture restorer for public museums and private clients.

At this moment, I’m a published non-fiction writer and am trying to be a thriller novelist.  I’m in the process of copy editing my first novel.

My hobbies are watch collecting and restoration, wood and metal crafts and vintage industrial design object restoration.

You can see more of CVADRAT’s art on his website where you can also buy high resolution images.  He also sells t-shirts and posters of his work on Zazzle.

Originally from Monterry, Mexico, Guillermo Aguilar Huerta started to take art seriously in his early twenties, first studying for a Diploma in Art History at Tecnológico de Monterrey (I.T.E.S.M.), then later studying Fine Art at Instituto Naacional de Bellas Artes in Monterrey and Interior Design at Cedim, Monterrey.

Guillermo’s time as an artist in Monterrey was very successful and he got to know a wide range of gallery owners and artists, but after a while he began to feel that the art scene there was perhaps too conservative for his tastes.  This prompted a move in 2007 to Berlin where he was quick to get involved with its vibrant and flourishing contemporary art scene.  Guillermo currently lives and works in Berlin.

Why do you like Op Art in particular?

I like Op art because it is a mix between Constructivism and Bauhaus, and I find the combinations from both these schools especially delightful. I enjoy the sensation the Op Art ‘optical illusions’ create.  This has in turn inspired me to make and create my own combinations, adapting them to my style whilst trying to preserve the effect of movement – something I find totally fascinating.

Why do you paint in the style you do?

I paint this way because I feel personally very familiar with geometry and I like the idea that you can make unlimited forms and combinations. I’m constantly surprised at the sheer number of different combinations you can create.

Which artists have you found inspirational?

There are many painters who for me were, and sometimes still still are, creating inspirational work such as Kandinsky, Riley, Mondrian, Von Mies Van der Roe, Roy Lichtenstein and many others. I don’t really have one favourite painter.  I feel great respect for all of them and of course I admire their Artwork.

How do you make your art?

I’m very traditional – I work with canvas or wood, but also I like to use materials that have already had a life. For example: cardboard, steel and plastic, especially plasic because this material takes around 500 years in nature to complete degrade. I can breathe new life into all those materials. It fascinates me that these forgotten materials can become new paintings, sculptures and installations in my studio and will last for generations.

What’s the process for making one of your artworks?

After I find my geometric forms I  fill them with universal patterns and typical Mexican patterns which add colour and warmth.  As I do this, I think about our modern way of life, about new architecture, different cultures, our technological advancement and how all these factors combine to influence our society. I try to combine all these thoughts in my head to create my compositions.

Anything else you like doing?

I like to walk everywhere to find new inspiration on the streets, new colours, new materials and new ideas.

You can find out more about Guillermo and see more of his work on his website.