The museum was first opened in 1987 after Victor Vasarely donated 400 of his works to the Museum of Fine Arts in his native Hungary. In addition to the large number of original Vasarely works on display, the museum also organises contemporary art exhibitions and provides exhibition halls for the Open Structures Art Society.
The Vasarely exhibiton is on permanently and is open to the public Tuesday through to Sunday 10am to 6pm. You can find out more on the museum’s website.
I’m a little late on this one as there are only 8 days left as of this post, but if you’re near Scottsdale, please go in and have a look at Carrie Marill’s work at the Lisa Sette Gallery. The exhibition is called ‘Hi n Lo’.
The title is a reference to a thought that struck Lisa after a visit to the Museum of Modern art (NY) and a subsequent visit to the American Folk Art Museum, namely: “Why is an Op Art piece considered ‘high’ art and an intricate quilt considered ‘low’?”
“The theme centers around this idea of blending the two worlds. What if Joseph Albers was a quilter or Gee’s Bend quilts turned into Abstract Expressionist paintings?” (Carrie Marill)
Red and White Mantra
Hey Bridget you wanna Mac?
A new extra-sized DC Comics special ‘Batman Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes’, written by Grant Morrison with art by Chris Burnham has recently gone on sale (21st December 2011). If you’re wondering what this has got to do with Op Art, it’s that the artist Chris has intensified the story by drawing beautiful and detailed Op Art backgrounds for the action.
When discussing his visual style for the comic, Chris says:
“I think it was more trying to have each scene have its own vibe. The whole issue has that weird circular structure where Batman goes into the same room over and over – or really four different rooms. But I wanted to have each time that he stepped in there have a bit of a different feel to make it easier on the reader and to give myself something interesting to draw… That’s where all the op art and style effects come from.”
You can read the full interview with Chris over at Comic Book Resources.
In this update, we’re showcasing the visually immersive work of talented London-based Op Artist Myoshka. Myoshka, 33, has worked in the creative side of the advertising industry for the past 15 years in jobs ranging from graphic design, web design, motion graphics through to directing, which is what he currently does. In his spare time he creates the wonderful static and animated Op Art below. You can see more of Myoshka’s art on his website, Myoshka.jp. Myoshka lives in London with his 2 dogs, Akira and Kuma.
Click on any of the images below to see larger versions.
An interesting additional element to Myoshka’s work comes from his involvement in the creative world of tattooing and some of his art has now been permanently etched to skin.
“Art is my refuge from a world of briefs and deadlines, a place where the only restriction is my own creativity. I was introduced to sacred geometry by my good friend tomastomas, a tatoo artist whose work continues to be an inspiration for me. Over the coming years I found myself immersed in patterns, and for the first time I saw my art committed to skin. Through sharing what I created I met many different people and artists from around the world, some of whom I’m now proud to call friends.”
Myoshka also works with the clothing company Maharishi and will be exhibiting a collection of screenprints at the Maharishi store in 2012.
Q. Did you study art?
No. I taught myself and learned through osmosis working with various creatives and artists along the way.
Q. Why do you like Op Art in particular?
I get lost in it. It moves. It twists. It draws me in. I love it’s simplicity. Black and white. Negative and positive. Balance.
Q. How do you make your art? Do you use a computer? If so what software do you use?
Illustrator mainly. But also Photoshop.
Q. What’s the process for making one of your artworks?
Everything is done in downtime from my day job so I try and create as freely as possible. Sometimes I’ll have had a thought in the day, or have seen something that sparked an idea. Mostly though, I open up illustrator and see what happens, what takes my fancy. It just goes from there. One night I won’t make anything I’m happy with, another I’ll have a complete breakthrough. I just put the thoughts out there and see what comes back. Like night fishing for geometry.
Q. Any other art you like.
Islamic art / Sacred Geometry / Tattoo / all things Japanese.
Q. Do you have any favourite artists?
tomastomas has been the biggest influence in my art – a good friend and incredible tattoo artist. Just today discovered David Szakaly through browsing your features – amazing. Obviously a huge fan of Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley. Favourite artists at the moment is Toby Zeigler.
[Note – to see more of David’s & Myoshka’s superb Op Art animations, click here]
Q. Anything else you like doing?
Walking my two dogs Akira & Kuma. Tattoo. Directing (my day job). Collaborating with Maharishi.
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Myoshka is also a big fan of electronic music and has experimented with combining music and art. You can see one of these interesting and immersive experiments below – a further two are linked below that.
I found an interesting Op Art portrait of Marilyn Monroe by Abderrahmane Doulache done using the “trait anglais” technique to give an Op Art effect. You can find some other excellent portrait based works on his profile on Art Limited.
Op Art Marilyn - Copyright © Abderrahmane Doulache (France), All rights reserved.
“The “trait anglais” technique is hardly used today; it had its heyday in the press in the sixties when it was used mainly in advertising. The drawing was done in India ink for reproduction in black and white. For this portrait of Marilyn, I used the same technique, but introduced an extra dimension – that of color.” (Abderrahmane Doulache)
Update:
Abderrahmane has just released a very cleverly constructed Op Art portrait of James Dean. Click on the thumbnail below to see the portrait on artlimited.
Op Art James Dean - Copyright © Abderrahmane Doulache (France), All rights reserved.