On view now at ArtTimesTwo through April 2011: artists John Franklin, Rory Mahon and Andrew Wilkinson
Along with visual physiologists, psychologists, the ancient Greeks, and children of all ages, artists investigate optical illusions and similar visual forms that test the brain’s assessment of pattern and meaning. There is endless intrigue with what certain two-dimensional forms can reveal with a second glance, and with the frisson of surprise that accompanies that revelation. It is this phenomenon of visual resonance that has connects the recent work of artists John Franklin, Rory Mahon and Andrew Wilkinson, whose work will be on exhibit at the gallery Art Times Two at Princeton Brain and Spine Care Institute from October through April, 2011. What is real? Do you see what I see? Are those lines actually moving? How can something appear to go up and down or in and out at the same time? By devising certain kinds of imagery – representational or non-representational – artists can isolate visual experiences that connect us back to these wide-ranging questions of perception. In viewing their visual riddles, we feel the physical path between the eye and the brain, and we are induced to laughter by perplexity. We delight in the ingenuity of the creative making of these image, and in the brain’s ability to creatively tangle with them. Madelaine Shellaby, curator |
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