Every now and again you encounter a piece of Op Art that produces such a strong visual effect it serves to remind you how much there still is to learn about human perception.

“Ghost” (above) by Mexican artist Ramiro Chávez Tovar is one such piece.  As you look towards the centre of the piece you’ll fleetingly notice that there appear to be a series of grid-like concentric circles and straight lines running from the outer edges into the centre.  Move your eyes or concentrate on a small section of the image and you’ll see that these lines are not part of the picture – it is in fact your perceptual system that is creating them.

You can see more of Ramiro’s work, including ‘Rotating drops’ above, on his deviant art profile.

For those who are interested, Ghost was created in contextfree and was generated by the following code:

startshape ghost

background {b 1}

rule ghost {

36*{r -10 h 10 }{30*{y 0.99 s 1.099 r 5.5 h 10 b 0.06} CIRCLE {y 1}}

CIRCLE {s 1}

}

Thanks to Ramiro for getting in touch with me.