not just optical illusions

April 24, 2007 9:09 AM

Illusion art by Octavio Ocampo, a painter from Mexico. Sometimes illusion art is made using unlikely materials, like Jason Mecier's art made out of beans, noodles etc. [previously] or like Scott Blake's barcode images. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye (14 comments total)

The Illusion Art Museum.

Other sites with Octavio Ocampo's art, here, here and here.

Illusion art at different times in history, in Victorian Topsy Turvy images or in Giuseppe Arcimboldo's paintings.
posted by nickyskye at 9:10 AM on April 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

My 6 year old loves loves LOVES "octical" illusions, both the artistic kind and the regular "which line is longer" kind. Looks like there aren't any books with the collected works of, just posters. :(
posted by DU at 9:22 AM on April 24, 2007

drat, meant to include Scott Blake's previous mention in MetaFilter.
posted by nickyskye at 9:23 AM on April 24, 2007

DU, aww, she calls them octical? There's tons of great optical illusion art on the web though. How about books with MC Escher's marvelous tesselation images? And there's that cool 1980's 3D optical illusion art as well, the kind you look at cross-eyed and it becomes 3D, do you know what I mean? Books full of stereograms.
posted by nickyskye at 9:31 AM on April 24, 2007

He, actually. And yes, we have several octical illusion books that he looks at at bedtime, plus a HUGE book at the library of everything MC Escher ever drew. He's never gotten the "magic eye" stereograms and I don't know how to teach it.

A good site for regular illusions.
posted by DU at 9:47 AM on April 24, 2007

What a surprise. Ocampo is from the same town as my stepmother and she knows him personally. And this is how I know that he painted some really nice murals in the city hall of that town.

These are actually my favorites of the stuff he's done, and here they are:

Hidalgo, who kickstarted Mexican independence (from Spain, that is, it would later become dependent on the US).

Morelos who continued the struggle after Hidalgo's death.

Madero who fought the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz and kickstarted the Mexican revolution, and

Carranza who introduced the Mexican Constitution of 1917.
posted by micayetoca at 9:58 AM on April 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Sublime
posted by Turtles all the way down at 10:10 AM on April 24, 2007

HI IM ON METAFILTER AND I COULD OVERTHINK A PORTRAIT OF BEANS (and noodles).
posted by LordSludge at 10:25 AM on April 24, 2007

just to be clear, from the images i've seen that you lined to, they are not really illusions. these are better described as "bistable percepts"....
posted by mano at 2:38 PM on April 24, 2007

I'm a big fan of Shigeo Fukuda, personally. "Lunch with a Helmut On" is one of my favorites.
posted by Spike at 5:41 PM on April 24, 2007

I like the two of the simplest, sparest pieces by Ocampo: the one in your first link, and this one. And the bar code stuff is cool. Thanks!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 11:34 PM on April 24, 2007

Thanks for the bistable percepts (awesome name!) -missed the previous link to Jason Mecier's work. The Bar Code stuff is swell as well.
posted by stagewhisper at 12:37 PM on April 25, 2007

Great additional links! Thanks for making this a juicy thread.

micayetoca, Wonderful additions that I would/could never have found. Those are amazing. Perhaps you'll meet him next time you visit your stepmother? Is the place really as "magical" (presumably that is is fancy way of saying "really nice") as Ocampo says it is?

mano, That is *such* a great phrase, bistable percepts. wow. Interesting combination of consonants and vowels. It would seem to express the visual form of double entendre.

Spike, wow, Shigeo Fukuda blows my mind. What a cool find! Thank you. The Lunch With a Helmut On is dazzling. How the hell does he do that!? Love his mischievous play on the word helmet and Helmut Newton (?).

flapjax, Yes, those are my favorites as well and the ones that prompted me to make this post, a delicious simplicity to them, a zen spaciousness that is alluring. However, the Mona Lisa with cats for a neck is lots of fun.
posted by nickyskye at 8:36 PM on April 26, 2007

nickyskye, well the city itself (Celaya) I don't like at all, but the state it is in (Guanajuato) is one of the nicest parts of Mexico. It's halfway through Mexico (about two hours north from Mexico City) and it combines that sort of dessert-like climate that everyone seems to identify Mexico with beautiful, beautiful colonial towns.

If you want to put images to this description you can go here. That is a photo pool about the State that the pics I linked to before belong. I'm glad you liked the links.
posted by micayetoca at 8:10 AM on April 28, 2007