Bellatrix 1957

Vasarely made this optical illusion of a painting named 'Bellatrix' using flat blocks of pigment in a limited palette. It's like he's saying, "Hey, let's see what we can do with just a few shapes and colors." What gets me is how the flatness of these forms creates the illusion of depth. The circles and squares, sitting on a clean white ground, feel like they're popping in and out, playing tricks on your eyes. Look at the way he shifts the color from black to blue, and the circles morph into these half-moon shapes, it’s so simple but so effective, it makes you think about how much we rely on visual cues to make sense of space. Vasarely reminds me a bit of Bridget Riley, another artist who was all about optical illusions. But where Riley’s work feels organic, Vasarely's got this hard-edged, geometric thing going on. Both of them show us that art doesn't always have to be about representation. It can be about perception itself. It's a conversation that keeps evolving, with no easy answers, and that's what makes it so exciting.