The Art of Illusion

In this weeks Good Things we shun reality and opt for illusions, trickery and magic in a round up of clever artists playing with our minds and raising a smile in the process.

You wouldn’t want to play hide and seek with Liu Bolin. He paints himself to look exactly like his surroundings and then takes a photo of it. It’s like Where’s Wally on steroids.

Finnish painter Yrjö Edelmann creates a double sense of wonder as he tricks us with his hyper real paintings of parcels, all neatly tied up with string in some very pretty colours.

Felice Varini is a master of magic, with his ambitious, large-scale perspective paintings. From one vantage point his solid shapes line up perfectly to create something which appears to be 2D – a technique aped by many in the world of photography and video and OK Go.

With a simple turn of the camera Cameron Wittig lead us to believe that these houses are sinking into the ground, when in actual fact they’re just on a hill.

Hikaru Cho should open a restaurant because she paints foods to look like other foods, and they trick us every time!

Phillip K Smith layered up mirrors up on an old shack. And hey presto, they reflect the surrounding environment and give the impression that this little dwelling in the desert is disappearing.

Alexander Kent's simple graphic stylings often employ a traditional idea of illusion, albeit in a modern way. 

Finally a little something from the site Consume Consume. It’s the best unintentional optical illusion of all time.