Anamorphosis

Subliminal Faces

Gianni Sarcone

This series of works questions the many cognitive aspects of faces’ recognition. People often see hidden faces in things, clouds, landscapes, or in architectural structures… Finding the latent or virtual image hidden in the manifest image is a mental process related to the concept of the “lost object” used in psychoanalysis. As an artist, I enjoy including subliminal messages or figures in my work. My paintings, photographs and collages play on the foreground and background relationship of our visual perception and represent common or iconic faces the viewer has to rediscover.

The Master of Numbers
Collage – mixed media, 2006

Photomosaic portrait of Albert Einstein made with random photographs of numbers.
It is only when the viewer moves away from the image that the portrait of Einstein appears. It is the distance that creates and unveils the truth, because everything is relative as Einstein once said and everything depends on the context, the environment or the point of view.

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Mephistopheles and Margaretta, a double statue

Gianni Sarcone

The “Salar Jung Museum” is an art museum located at Dar-ul-Shifa, on the southern bank of the Musi River in the city of Hyderabad, Telangana, India. In this museum is exhibited a captivating double-figure wood sculpture built in the 19th century A.D. in France. It stands before a mirror and shows the facade of a nonchalant Mephistopheles and the image of a demure Margaretta in the mirror.

The wooden double statue of ‘Mephistopheles and Margaretta’ representing evil and good are characters from Goethe’s famous work ‘Dr.Faust’ (1808) and tells the story of love, heroism and tragedy.

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Urban Butterflies

Gianni Sarcone

Mantra is a French muralist and street artist, born in Metz (East of France) in 1987. He is a self-taught artist and currently one of the most important “avant-garde” graffiti artists in Europe.

Having developed over many years a very personal technique and skills, Mantra is able to realize artworks on any surface and of all scales using a great level of detail and realism. Mantra’s artwork bring concrete walls to life around the world, from Zaragoza, to Paris, passing by Vienna, Lima, Seattle, Brussels, Quito and Bogota.

The artist pays tribute to his childhood exotic heroes (butterflies, owls, spiders, birds…) in a realistic and lively style, like a mirror reflecting on the cries of a nature that we don’t hear anymore.

I love butterflies… There is no doubt that they have significant meanings to us. Butterflies are deep and powerful representations of life. Many cultures associate them with our souls. Around the world, people view the butterfly as representing endurance, change, hope, and life.

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Godzilla could turn off that switch!

Gianni Sarcone

on_off_switch Escif is a Spanish muralist and street artist, most of his work can be found in the streets of his town, Valencia, but also in countries such as Canada, France, Italy, Poland and more.
The use of subdued colors and simple lines helps the artist make a humorous statement on various sensitive social or political issues, like in this gigantic mural for Poland’s “Katowice Street Art Festival”.

Juxtaposed next to those who passers-by, the artwork looks ridiculously large. Carefully painting just a few colors, Escif gives the illusion that some sort of giant can really turn off that switch!

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Would you dare run on it?

Gianni Sarcone

This wavy floor is actually a mind-boggling optical illusion that discourages people from running down the hallway (in fact, the floor is a completely flat surface!).

Manchester firm Casa Ceramica used a neat combination of black and white tiles to make the floor along the hallway look as though it is uneven making the tiles appear to slope away into a dip.

floor illusion 2

The illusion only works in one direction, so you will be perfectly safe on the way out.

floor illusion

The making of the floor.

Many visual illusions have already been used to try and slow down traffic like this 3D-painted zebra crossing trialed in Iceland that provides an illusory effect of white blocks floating over the road.

zebra-cross illusion