Carl F Anderson
Ernst Benkert
Siri Berg
Claire Blitz
Ronald Davis
Nathan Ethier
Roland Gebhardt
Christian Haub
James Kelly
Matthew Kluber
Mokha Laget
Marilyn Nelson
Dee Shapiro
Andrew Spence
Robert Swain
Martha Szabo
Laura Watt
Sanford Wurmfeld
Optics and Perception: Prismatic, Patterned, Vectored, and Perspectival Approaches
ISBN: 978-1-955260-37-4
Front Cover: Ronald Davis, Three Polygon Slabs , 1988, Cel-Vinyl Acrylic Copolymer and Nova Gel on Birch Plywood
Title Page: Carl F Anderson, Crecimiento , 2023, Acrylic and thread on canvas over wood support, 27 inches in diameter. - Detail
Optics and Perception: Prismatic, Patterned, Vectored, and Perspectival Approaches, November 19, 2024 - February 17, 2025
Published by:
David Richard Gallery, LLC, 245 East 124th Street, 11K, New York, NY 10035
www.DavidRichardGallery.com 212-882-1705
Gallery Staff:
DavidRichardGalleries1 DavidRichardGallery
David Eichholtz and Richard Barger, Managers
All rights reserved by David Richard Gallery, LLC. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in whole or part in digital or printed form of any kind whatsoever without the express written permission of David Richard Gallery, LLC.
Catalogue: © 2025 David Richard Gallery, LLC, New York, NY Images by: Yao Zu Lu and David Eichholz
Artworks: Copyright the Respective Artists below.
All rights reserved. Courtesy David Richard Gallery
Carl F Anderson
Ernst Benkert Estate
Siri Berg Estate
Claire Blitz Estate
Ronald Davis
Nathan Ethier
Roland Gebhardt
Christian Haub
James Kelly, Artist Enterprise Holdings, LLC
Matthew Kluber
Mokha Laget
Marilyn Nelson
Dee Shapiro
Andrew Spence
Robert Swain
Martha Szabo Estate
Laura Watt
Sanford Wurmfeld
Catalogue Design: David Eichholtz and Richard Barger, David Richard Gallery, LLC, New York, NY
Optics and Perception: Prismatic, Patterned, Vectored, and Perspectival Approaches
Carl F Anderson
Ernst Benkert
Siri Berg
Claire Blitz
Ronald Davis
Nathan Ethier
Roland Gebhardt
Christian Haub
James Kelly
Matthew Kluber
Mokha Laget
Marilyn Nelson
Dee Shapiro
Andrew Spence
Robert Swain
Martha Szabo
Laura Watt
Sanford Wurmfeld
Optics and Perception: Prismatic, Patterned, Vectored, and Perspectival Approaches
The words “perception” and “optics” often make one think of the dizzying patterns, high key colors, and psychedelic images of Op Art from the 1960s and 70s. However, optical and illusory effects have been observed, recreated, and mimicked in paintings and drawings by artists throughout art history. Consider trompe-l’oeil, pointillism, optical color mixing, and hyper-realism as examples. Many illusory effects are intended by an artist to accurately portray dimensional space using multipoint perspective as well as modeling shadows, leveraging light sources and chiaroscuro to render the volume of forms and make them almost palpable. Each, a “trick” of the eye one way or another. However, there are also times when studio processes and color palettes, alone or in combination with other influences, create unintended and interesting, visually challenging imagery, sort of a process dependent “happy accident”. In some instances, it is not a complete image nor what the brain thinks it sees; hence it drifts into perceptual realms whereby the brain perceives and makes sense of what the eye is seeing. Environmental context of the viewing situation, multiple stimuli, and memory are all important influences on one’s visual perception.
This presentation of 36 artworks by 18 different artists of different ages and genders, from varying art historical periods and movements, each having unique aesthetic objectives and studio practices. They are brought together in this presentation to consider optics and various artistic approaches and practices whereby the final compositions can generate imagery challenging visual perceptions.
The artists are grouped in four categories based upon the device and /or process that delivers the illusory impact they either set out to achieve or stumbled upon by chance through a confluence of factors. The four general groupings, for ease of description and discussion, in this presentation include: Prismatic, Patterned, Vectored, and Perspectival approaches.
Essays, captions, descriptions, and comments by David Eichholtz, Curator and Art Historian November 2024, New York
Prismatic approaches are utilized by these artists: Robert Swain, Sanford Wurmfeld, Matthew Kluber and Carl Anderson. Wurmfeld and Swain, former faculty at Hunter College in New York City, spent their entire careers immersed in color theory and systemic approaches to elucidating the interactions of adjacent colors, their optical blending in the human eye, and effect on visual perception. Kluber and Anderson leverage those learnings and combine the theory with influences from Color Field painting, digital technology, new pigments and materials, as well as novel supports and methods of presentation on digital monitors or circular canvases, respectively.
The new formal element introduced by Wurmfeld in his newest Corona Variations series is dividing the composition into two halves, either vertically or horizontally. This allows the artist to explore simultaneously the interaction of two different aspects of the color spectrum using a range of hues and values.
Untitled Study 7x7-19x29 BB , 2015-16
The focus of each of Swain’s compositions is solely on the colors: their adjacency to each other, interaction with one another, and their resulting effect on the viewer’s perception of color. Therefore, the colors are the content and subject of each painting. This statement is meant to distinguish the actual content (the colors) from the grid in each composition. The grid is just the structure, or architecture, of each painting that contains distinct colors in individual squares.
Untitled Study 7x7 – Red and Green , 2019
El Caracol , 2023
Acrylic and thread on canvas over wood support
43 inches in diameter on circular canvas.
Photographed in Natural Light
These newest circular paintings by Carl Anderson are unique in that they combine three distinct media and pigments in a single composition: acrylic paint, fluorescent paint, and glow-in-the-dark threads attached to the surfaces, each providing distinct retinal experiences and perceptual challenges for the viewer in different light environments. Therefore, with their novel pigments, these paintings challenge the viewer’s visual perception and are optically active in natural light or under black light with an added benefit of an afterglow when the lights are switched off.
The eye-popping compositions were inspired by Op Art from the 1960s and 70s and the icons such as Bridget Riley, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Julian Stanczak, and Ernst Benkert. Anderson has combined his take on the use of swirling lines, hard edge geometric shapes, radiating lines, patterns, rectilinear and curvilinear forms combined with high contrast and high-keyed color combinations, including fluorescent and glow in the dark pigments that make the compositions pulse and vibrate, creating illusions of dimensional space and spinning motion.
The three different images photographed in natural light, black light and the dark to reveal the optical properties of the paint colors, geometry and composition as well as the Day-Glo and glow-in-the-dark qualities under black light and in the dark.
Carl F Anderson
El Caracol , 2023
Acrylic and thread on canvas over wood support
43 inches in diameter on circular canvas.
Photographed in Black Light revealing the fluorescent Day Glo effects.
Carl F Anderson
El Caracol , 2023
Acrylic and thread on canvas over wood support 43 inches in diameter on circular canvas. Photographed in the Dark revealing the Glow-In-the-Dark and After Glow properties of the small threads soaked in phosphorescent pigments and collaged onto the painting surface.
Crecimiento , 2023
Acrylic and thread on canvas over wood support
27 inches in diameter.
Photographed in Natural Light
Crecimiento , 2023
Acrylic and thread on canvas over wood support
27 inches in diameter.
Photographed in Black Light revealing the fluorescent Day Glo effects.
Carl F Anderson
El Caracol , 2023
Acrylic and thread on canvas over wood support 43 inches in diameter on circular canvas. Photographed in the Dark revealing the Glow-In-the-Dark and After Glow properties of the small threads soaked in phosphorescent pigments and collaged onto the painting surface.
Introducing all new artworks by Matthew Kluber:
For nearly two decades, Matthew Kluber has been working with digital imagery and computer programming to generate “motion pictures”. These are not movies, per se, but rather paintings on a flat support where the digital imagery literally is generated by the computer program on the support (either as a projection on a painted metal support or illuminated on a monitor) and moves across the flat surface. It can also be thought of as a slow-moving painting. The origin of the imagery is based on the images observed on monitors of early computers (eg. Early 1980s) when they would crash. Those images of collapsed data have been recreated by Kluber’s programming and proprietary software.
In this new series of “Motion Pictures”, the software is run on a mini-computer and viewed on a monitor, which can vary in size depending on the viewer’s preference. The imagery on the monitor is comprised of 2 to 7 different layers of data / imagery combined into one program to create the final composition. Each layer is a discrete program of varying length (around 1 to 5 minutes in length) and thus has a unique reset point. As the program of each layer reaches the end, it seamlessly resets and goes back to its reset point. The resetting of each layer at different lengths of time relative to the other layers of imagery is what generates the internal variation and generates new imagery every second. This is not one single program on a loop repeating itself. Hence, while the motifs and certain images and iconography are constant and seen throughout a single work, the viewer does not see the same imagery or segments repeated exactly, which keeps the imagery evergreen.
The visual variation is a function of: (i) the programming / data differences in each layer and the unique reset point of that layer, and (ii) the number of layers of data within a single composition.
Natural Mystics, 2023, right page, is considered a simpler piece and program with only a Single Layer of data and imagery.
Ceaseless Travail, 2024, below, is a more complex, multi-layered composition.
Matthew Kluber
Natural Mystics , 2023
Custom software, computer, monitor.
Run Time is continuous with layer resets.
Dimensions: Variable depending upon the size of desired monitor.
Pricing is based on a standard 75” diagonal monitor.
Following is a link to the digital artwork in “motion”:
https://davidrichardgallery.com/artwork/20103-natural-mystics?artistsid=805
Matthew Kluber Natural Mystics , 2023 Custom software, computer, monitor. Run Time is continuous with layer resets. Dimensions: Variable depending upon the size of desired monitor. Pricing is based on a standard 75” diagonal monitor. The image below is a still image of the piece when being run on a monitor.
Matthew Kluber
Ceaseless Travail , 2024
Custom software, computer, monitor.
Run Time is continuous with layer resets.
Dimensions: Variable depending upon the size of desired monitor.
Pricing is based on a standard 75” diagonal monitor.
Following is a link to the digital artwork in “motion”:
https://davidrichardgallery.com/artwork/20108-ceaseless-travail?artistsid=805
Matthew Kluber Ceaseless Travail , 2024 Custom software, computer, monitor. Run Time is continuous with layer resets. Dimensions: Variable depending upon the size of desired monitor. Pricing is based on a standard 75” diagonal monitor. The image below is a still image of the piece when being run on a monitor.
Matthew Kluber
Wild Bergamot , 2023
Custom software, computer, monitor.
Run Time is continuous with layer resets.
Dimensions: Variable depending upon the size of desired monitor.
Pricing is based on a standard 75” diagonal monitor.
Following is a link to the digital artwork in “motion”:
https://davidrichardgallery.com/artwork/20105-wild-bergamot?artistsid=805
Matthew Kluber Wild Bergamot , 2023 Custom software, computer, monitor. Run Time is continuous with layer resets. Dimensions: Variable depending upon the size of desired monitor. Pricing is based on a standard 75” diagonal monitor. The image below is a still image of the piece when being run on a monitor.
Patterned approaches that utilize combinations of geometry, color, grid compositions, mathematical algorithms for determining placement of the shapes and colors, repetition of motifs, as well as the layering of forms, colors and motifs can create optical effects via the artist’s process in and of itself and rigor of adhering to it.
Marilyn Nelson and Dee Shapiro emerged out of Systemic Pattern Painting and their inclusion in an artist collective in the 1970s and 80s known as the Criss-Cross cooperative that also published an informative magazine with critical writings and images of the member’s artworks as well as other international artists and related exhibitions.
Ernst Benkert, well known as an important and early participant in Optical Art (Op Art) in the 1960s and 70s, predated Systemic Pattern Painting. Benkert was a member of another important artist collective during that time known as the Anonima Group that included Francis Hewitt and Edwin Mieczkowski. Using grids of eye-popping hues as well as the reductive black and white palette, Benkert rigorously and systematically used geometric and spherical shapes to explore permutations in grids within grids or quadrants on a page that produced patterns that activated the eye and challenged the mind and perception of the viewer.
Nate Ethier emerged many decades later and since 2012 has explored color through geometric and spherical forms in rigorous grids that are built up sequentially, one layer at a time, using thin translucent pigments to reveal both the process and history of the previous hues. Ethier’s work is an amalgam of color, patterning, and vectors to create a new generation of paintings and visual experiences.
Detail:
This is a great example of pattern overlayed on top of the same pattern and motif. The different scales of the motif create different visual effects and interpretations. This entire painting is comprised of small scale version of the motif of cubic shapes that are filled in with a single color of either shades of blue, or hues of red, orange, yellow, or green as well as black and white. This tessellation of small cubic forms are then overpainted with darker shades or lighter values of the blue colors to create larger tessellated cubes that—due to the range of blue shades and values—read as open, three-dimensional cubes.
Please see the detail image below to observe this phenomenon more clearly.
Watercolor marker, graph paper Image
24 x 24”
Framed Size: 32 x 32”
Detail:
Shapiro, an early enthusiastic participant in Systemic Pattern Painting, whose paintings and renderings were rooted in the Fibonacci progression (an algorithm to create a patter), geometry, and color. Later in her career she explored biomorphic forms, integrated pattern work, and added collaged elements to continue her explorations in non-objective art with a twist of psychedelic art.
Note Shapiro’s use of gridded graph paper as her support to create squares of varying shapes and sizes, using specific colors per the Fibonacci progression, that are located within larger circular shapes within repeating square quadrants. An illustrative example of using squares within squares and precise color demarcations to create specific shapes and sizes of larger squares.
Dee Shapiro Quartet , 1980
Watercolor marker, graph paper Image 24 x 24” Framed Size: 32 x 32”
Untitled , 1965
Benkert explores a range of permutations of both the circular shape and the square in which the circle is contained that situated within a square grid. The degree of shading of the circle varies from the outer squares toward the center that creates an illusion of voids or shading and as the scale also decreases toward the center, the illusion of depth is portrayed. The linear hash marks also impart an optical quality and illusion of an undulation of the surface of the grid.
The Sun Through A Tree , 2022
51.5 x 48”
Layering of saturated and desaturated colors using meticulously applied translucent glazes with overlapping and opposing horizontal and vertical brush strokes that emulate the warp and weft of woven textiles in an overall canvas-filling pattern has been a mainstay of Ethier’s studio practice for years. While the process and use of all over patterns remains constant, the key feature in this newest body of work is the presence of a centrally located focal point comprised of bright and vividly colored rectilinear and curvilinear shapes against a background of all over geometric forms and patterns in desaturated hues of complimentary and tonal values.
Ethier achieves compositional harmonies through his all-over patterned grounds that persist in form, thus anchoring the composition, while varying in the upper most hues that the viewer sees through the building of successive layers of translucent color applied selectively in newly applied shapes over the surface of the canvas as noted above. The new brighter and vividly colored focal point, the “figure” in the parlance of “figure-ground” relationships, emerges from the ground through this sequential process of adding additional patterns of new curved and geometric shapes and leveraging color theory to achieve harmonic palettes. Sometimes the shapes of the ground remain as grids of squares or rotated to create diamond shapes and grided patterns.
According to Ethier in a recent written statement: “The compositions of these pictures are simultaneously ‘all over’, and not. The collections of illuminated shapes seem to disrupt the underlying grid; however, they depend on its very structure to exist as part of the image. These paintings are hard edge and soft edge, all at once.”
16.5 x 15.75”
Reminiscent of Julian Stanczak, the important color-based abstraction painter best known for his optical and illusory compositions in the 1960s and 70s and his approach, sequentially layering colors on top of the patterned layer below utilized taping and masking to successively reveal only the shapes to be painted with the new hue. The difference is Stanczak almost always used opaque colors to cover over selective portions of the grid of colors below. Ethier, however, uses translucent colors so that the color below becomes part of and transformed selectively into a different color specifically within the desired shape that, in his case, will become part of the emerging figure in the ultimate foreground. Another interesting comparison between the generationally diverse artists is the repetition of certain small motifs or structures of contrasting colors that are uniformly gridded or patterned across the canvas surface. Stanczak referred to these as “activation elements” because they excite the viewer’s eye, causing the brain to try and make sense of the frenetic marks which in turn makes the viewer more susceptible to the power of suggestion. In other words, the activation elements help challenge the viewer’s visual perception.
The final additions in Ethier’s newest paintings are often large circular discs, ovals, squares, or teardrop shapes in specific arrays and highly contrasting translucent hues of lavender, light grey, bright amber, or lighter values of colors within the composition to either elevate the centrally located figure by framing it or directionally drawing the viewer’s eye to it, or even veiling and slightly obfuscating the figure. In the painting, “Magical Thinking” the large discs on the upper-most layer of canvas gives the figure a slight anthropomorphic reference, it almost appears as the head and eyes of an owl.
63 x 60”
The centrally located figures are interesting shapes in and of themselves, moving the compositions into an optical and illusory aesthetic and making the viewer ponder astral, mystical, or existential realms. The most dimensional of the structures is the bi-partite curvaceous structure resembling a spinning top or dumbbells, possibly even an electron map (for the chemists out there). The interior shapes and patterning utilize a curved domeshaped form that reads as a sliver off the edge of a circle and provides powerful kinetic, whirling, and illusory imagery. Other structures of the figure range from spherical orbs that are floating freely or slightly resting upon the dumbbell structure noted above or just a portion of it such that there is a slight botanical nod to perhaps the pedicle of a flower or fruiting structures. Still, in others, the sphere morphs into an oval or elliptical shape. Again, the combination of the high contrast, high-key colors and curves of the interior shapes and patterns imbue these ovoid structures with pulsating and spinning kinetic movement.
Ethier recently commented on his sources of inspiration, “Inspiration for the shapes and motifs at play in this work came from the dappling effect of sunlight through forest canopies, stained glass arrangements, mycology, sun angle charts, wind patterns, bird murmuration, the Moon, concert lighting, botanical order, loud music on a clear day, and surely many other subconscious interventions.”
Ethier’s command of color and intuition for juxtaposing hues to leverage interactions and optical effects creates the internal energy and sets the mood for each painting. To that end, Ethier recently wrote, “The illusion of projected light conveyed in my pictures gives each one of them a sense of life, action, and exuberant coexistence with the viewer.”
Vectored approaches to induce illusory effects include the use of geometric bands and shapes, leveraging angles of the internal geometry and perimeters of the composition, and color (hot and cool hues for the visual push-pull effects as well as various shades and values for modeling volume). The right combination can create the suggestion of volume and dimensional space in a two-dimensional picture plane. Several artists utilize this approach in different ways, including Ronald Davis, Mokha Laget, Claire Blitz, Andrew Spence, Siri Berg and Laura Watt. See examples below.
Claire Blitz deftly uses a minimal palette with many values and transitions to challenge visual perception. The result is the illusion of planes of color and vectored shapes tilting at different angles relative to the picture plane.
In the 1960s, Davis went deep into art history and leveraged the learnings from early Renaissance painting. Specifically, he was inspired by Paolo Uccello and Duccio and their early reinvention of perspective illusion. By focusing on 2- and 3-point perspective, extreme vector angles and geometry, potent color interactions per Johannes Itten, and optical effects, he found his visual language that propelled his art for seven decades.
Three Part Fillet , 1988
Close Range , 2022
Mokha Laget is a master of using vectored angles and planes of meticulously selected matte colors of the perfect value, all contained with shaped perimeters that challenge visual perception and create the illusion of dimensional shapes in space.
Series, SBE0518) , 1986
Siri Berg uses repetition of concentric shapes with color contrast and value transitions to create the illusion of telescopic depth.
Untitled (Endless Series, SBE0521) , 1986
Spence uses the greatest economy of means to create his subtle illusory effects. With a keen eye and judicious use of few lines, open geometric shapes, and a minimal color palette, he creates his suggestive imagery. Of course, a suggestive title helps nudge the viewer’s mind bit. What is also interesting is Spence blurs the line between representation and pure abstraction. Albeit subtle, the pillowy white / grey abstract gestural background on which the figure is situated provides atmospheric perspective and suggests spatial depth.
Watt Announcement , 2023
Watt uses radiating vectors from a single point and at multiple loci in the compositions to create dramatic compositions that immediately convey a landscape with great spatial depth. In her recent work, she is also using staining techniques to provide translucent layers and create atmospheric perspective.
Weather Report No.2 , 2023
Perspectival approaches in this presentation can also be thought of as structural, sculptural or architectural which is, essentially, the literalness of perspectival geometry creating the perception of volume and space in the two-dimensional picture plane. The artists Roland Gebhardt, James Kelly, Christian Haub and Martha Szabo work and create their artworks with these approaches. Ronald Davis also occupies this space beginning with his iconic, very flat cast resin wall sculptures from the early 1960s with their highly illusory imagery of large cubes and elliptical discs floating in space.
Gebhardt’s work is mostly sculptural, free-standing and wall works, using mostly wood, stone, metal and paper in natural colors or black and white. His practice has focused on voids that emphasize vectors and angles and the illusion of greater dimensionality and scale.
Kelly was not known as an Op Art artist per se, he was best known as a gestural abstract painter for most of his 6-decade career. His early roots in geometry and late modernism in the 1940s frequently leaned toward illusory space and compositions. In this presentation, his drawings from the 1970s reveal his interest in “voids” and the optical quality of not what an artist draws, but that which is not included is what completes the composition.
Haub, using thin strips of colored acrylic plastic glued together at right angles to create wall constructions, focuses on the translucency of color and interaction of cast shadows to create a wider color palette and larger scale in his constructions as the cast shadows reach far beyond the acrylic borders.
Szabo used the chimneys, fuel tanks and skylights of roof tops to take the chaos of such structures and reducing them to basic shapes and forms to create her geometric compositions. Her deft use of chiaroscuro, observed from the sun at extreme raking angles during the fast transition to dusk provided a real image that she painted to capture an illusory and fleeting moment from a view out her window.
Voids have also been an important and foundational part of Gebhardt’s artworks. The “voids” are the bits and aspects of an object, or a space that are not there, that which has been removed or not included. This same effect can be achieved by mimicking the voids with black paint over a white painted support, as in the small table sculpture above. It is not that voids or the focus on them is about the removal or loss of some part of an object, nor what was taken away or lost. On the contrary, it is just the opposite, Gebhardt focuses on what the voids create. A void can create, first and foremost, a new way of looking at something, putting an emphasis on an aspect that would otherwise be overlooked. Conversely, the absence of something can make one appreciate the missing element or form, or the integrity it imparts on the “whole; or the elegance of the sum of the parts to begin with.
Alternate View.
Below: Alternate view.
James Kelly’s career spanned 7-decades, from California Abstract Expressionism to New York’s Downtown Scene, from the mid-1940s after WWII until his passing in 2003. In 1959 Kelly moved to New York with his wife, Sonia Gechtoff. It was a turbulent time in the 1960s and 70s during that time with the burgeoning Pop, Op Art and Hard Edge painting scene. Kelly was comfortable with geometry from his early days in the 1940s and 50s and interests in Cubism and late Modernism. Following that, he spent nearly 20 years as an Abstract Expressionist painter in San Francisco, then he moved to gestural abstraction in the 60s, then back to geometric grids and reductive works in the 1970s. Interestingly, he had an interest in voids, but predating the work of Roland Gebhardt.
The “floats” by Haub have a number of surprising qualities that impart both a physicality and unexpected perceptual experience. Physically, they are constructions made of cast sheets of colored acrylic that are cut and assembled into open structures with vertical and horizontal elements. Formally, these artworks are entirely about color. Haub uses a limited palette, but the transparent acrylic allows light to pass through and create cast shadows, both within and outside of the structures and that is where the real action begins. When the shadows intersect and overlap the colors blend, creating new colors and expanding the palette. However, another fantastic thing happens, depending upon the angle and intensity of the light source—natural or artificial light—the shadows reach beyond the physical structure and expand the size of the artwork. This transformation of the local space with a luminous glow also introduces a kinetic quality to the work in a couple of ways. First, the shadows move and change depending upon the light source and especially if from natural light, that changes throughout the day in terms of angle, intensity and spectrum. Second, the shape and scale of the work changes as the viewer moves around and views the artwork from different distances and angles.
Szabo’s work was inspired by her European training and the masters of Cubism, Constructivism, Fauvism, Expressionism, and Surrealism. She loved New York City and viewing it from her rooftop. She enjoyed the views during dusk as the sun was setting because it obscured details and allowed shadows to morph into myriad possible forms and figures; her imagination could run wild. The time of day, architectural subject matter, and her imagination let her take ordinary shapes on the rooftops and turn them into abstractions with extreme cast shadows, perspectival and vector geometries and challenge visual perceptions.
