Chris Long first developed an interest in and started creating Op Art when he studied for a B.A. in Art at Solihull College in the West Midlands (UK). That was 7 years ago. Since then he has completed an M.A. in Fine Art at Birmingham City University and has started his own business selling his designs in various formats and mediums. Although in its first year, the business has been growing “slowly but steadily”.
“I am fascinated by op art because of the illusions the pieces create. I particularly like images that give the appearance of being 3D despite being painted on a flat surface and images that appear to move when they are clearly not moving at all. I have been very much inspired by the work of Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley; I also like the work of M.C Escher – particularly his ‘impossible’ illustrated works.”
Chris works mainly painting by hand on canvas or hard board, but has recently started creating pieces with a computer using nothing other than Microsoft Paint. These pieces “involve creating a complex grid system – something that can be quite time consuming depending on the size and the complexity of the design – but once done, allows me to reuse this grid structure to create multiple designs. Once I have completed a design, I change the colour of the grid lines – sometimes creating the impression that the lines are bending even though they are perfectly straight”
Chris was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome soon after starting University and has found that his artwork has been a great way of helping him “deal with the many things in life that cause him stress and anxiety.”
Outside of his art, Chris is a cricket fanatic and is also a big online gamer. “In particular, the online gaming has been a great way of making friends as I have previously found social contact quite difficult. As part of the gaming, a friend and I make videos of the gameplay which we commentate over. This has been a great confidence building exercise for me which I’ve found I can use in other aspects of my life”.
If you’d like to buy any of Chris’s designs, you can do so as laptop covers on Lapjacks, or as posters, keyrings and postcards at his zazzle store. If you want to watch Chris’s gaming videos you can do so at his YouTube Channel.
Born in Venezuela and raised in Miami, 36 year old Arnold Steiner has been involved in Fine Art and Design for most of his life. As a child he was given a box of Crayolas; a defining moment that first sparked his passion for art.
After graduating from High School, Arnold studied for 3 years at the School of Visual Arts in New York. For the next 10 years, Arnold worked in New York as a freelance Graphic designer and continues to work in this field today. Examples of his work can be found in everything from film posters, album covers, clothing designs to advertisement and packaging design. Arnold’s work has been featured in several contemporary graphic design books and other publications including Time Out, Trace, Surface, Translucent (Japan), Sampler2, and Repellent.
After 15 years of making his mark in the print digital medium, Arnold took a leap into digital video, collaborating with Phoenix and Brian in creating “Drawdown” in 2004. Arnold is also active in the contemporary ‘Electro’ music scene; in 2005 Arnold started his own record label “Transient Force” and has published over 10 albums in the past 7 years.
While still maintaining his graphic design integrity and music production, Arnold continued pursuing Fine Art. In 2007 he created a 5,000 square foot Multimedia Art exhibition “Submecha” featuring Fine Art, Digital art and Video. In 2008 Arnold was Nominated “Best Local Album Cover Artist” By the “Miami New Times”. In 2010 Arnold was awarded 1st place in the Sci-Fi London film festival poster contest “Life In 2050″. Arnold is a multi talented artist with both visual and musical expression.
Arnold always had a passion for the basic colours and tones that can be used to generate the entire colour spectrum, but it was the discovery of Mondrian’s work that led him to believe he had found the colour set he would fall in love with; there was something about using these colours (Red, Yellow, Blue, Black and White) that gave him a sense of completion.
Soon after this discovery he began to experiment with different styles such as Suprematism, Comparison Art, Possibility Art, Minimalism and Op Art. It was the discovery of Bridget Riley’s ‘striped’ pieces that was the next defining moment in his artistic career. Arnold started an ongoing study of how these basic colours appear within a different composition of stripes and the effect that the stripes created. Working exclusively with vertical stripes, each painting has a focus on balance no matter what the nature of the composition.
“I chose to name each piece as “Untitled” so the viewer is not distracted by a particular idea. The paining is created more for the viewer to self-reflect on how they feel about it rather than it being a form of self expression.”
I like Op art because to me it is the foundation of colour theory and composition. Another reason why I like Op Art is that it leaves the viewer with an emotion without any literal explanation. Op Art lets the viewer decide what it means to them. I like the symbolism that can be found in Op art. What I particularly like about the Op art I’m creating is the choice of colours (Red, Blue, Yellow, Black and White paint ) which are the foundation to the entire colour spectrum.
How do you make your art?
I make my paintings by thinking of different compositions without any pre-sketches or computer. I create the art with the application of Red, Blue, Yellow, Black and white acrylic paint, art tape and a ruler. Each painting needs to have a new variation on how the stripes are placed. This is the process I use to create my paintings.
Any other art you like?
I am inspired by Bridget Riley, Mondrian, Yaacov Agam, Daniel Buren, Günter Fruhtrunk and Omar Rayo.
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.
Blazed Again 2
Akemashite Omedetou
Blazed Again
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.
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.
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’m really pleased to be starting 2012 with a hugely talented South American Op Artist, Tony. Tony runs the blog ‘Tony Digital Art & Design‘ where he posts up his artwork. I originally came across Tony via Marco Braun‘s flickr page, and contacted him late last year. After agreeing to show his work on the site, I had the difficult task of picking out 8 pieces for this post: ‘difficult’ because Tony’s Op Art is all so incredibly good it’s almost impossible to choose one piece over another.
Tony, who is 43, works as an Industrial Designer, was born and raised in Argentina, and has his own vinyl graphics and ‘giant printing’ company.
“I am really keen on geometry and color, and I draw my artwork completely in my computer, in vector format, which enables me to print it to any size keeping the art definition. I really enjoy handling geometry, color and vectors in my computer. I just sit down in front of the computer and start experimenting freely with shapes and colors. As time goes by, ideas start to come up, as do ways of experimenting with those shapes and colors.”
If you visit Tony’s design blog, you’ll notice that all of his pieces are named after songs he likes.
“I am frequently asked about the reason for choosing names of songs for my artwork. I pick the names of songs that I like and that bear no relation to the artwork. I prefer not to give an artwork any name that might condition its viewing, which I consider should be as neutral as possible.”
Tony is a huge fan of early abstract art and of each successive movement of abstract and kinetic art right up to the present day.
Aside from his art, Tony really enjoys kayaking in the delta of the Tigre, in Buenos Aires, as well as golfing and other outdoor activities. You can see some great photos of Tony’s kayaking excursions on his Delta Argentino blog. If you’d like to see more of Tony’s artwork, then I can’t recommend highly enough Tony’s Digital Art & Design Blog. Hopefully we’ll be seeing more of Tony’s work on the site in the future.
It’s that family time of year, so we thought it would be nice for Christmas to return to the pupils of Maryland Primary School in London to show some of the final pieces from their Op Art project. The junior Op Artists here are all 4 years old.
Each piece is shown alongside the Bridget Riley work it was based on. The italic text is a description from Dale (the teacher who helped the children to create the pieces).
Movement in Squares
“We made ‘Movement in Squares’ by cutting squares of black sugar paper and sticking on to white paper. The children cut strips from the squares, making them progressively smaller.”
“Shadowplay was made on a large scale. Every child drew around a template on to a colour of their choice. They then cut them out and we assembled a whole class picture.”
Fall
“Fall’ was created by cutting our own stencils, then drawing around them numerous times to create the repeating pattern.”
“We created 2 blues by cutting shapes from 2 different shades of blue and arranging them on white paper. 2 oranges was our version of 2 blues. We printed different shades of orange and arranged them in to a whole class ‘fire’ picture for bonfire night.”
We are always looking for Op Artists to feature on the site, whether you work in the digital medium or in something more traditional.
If you are interested in exhibiting your work on the site or if you have an upcoming exhibtion you would like us to list, please use the contact page to get in touch with us.
