cellio | nifty art

Last night, at my CEO's insistence, I went to see a small exhibit of Patrick Hughes' 3-D art in Shadyside. It's quite spiffy (and hard to describe). He plays with perception so, for example, you'll be looking at a painting of a room with several perpendicular surfaces reaching out toward you (e.g. bookcases on a wall, then you see the corner and a plain wall after a 90-degree turn; you're looking point-on). As you move your head from side to side the objects (the walls, in this case) seem to move -- except that they're moving in the wrong direction. Imagine that you're looking point-on at bookcases on the left and a plain wall on the right. You move your head toward the right, which would cause you to see more plain wall in a real room. You instead see the section rotate and show you more bookcase. Very wacky. I was told that there's some vertical action too, but I was unable to see it.

There is, of course, a trick to it (and as a warning, the web site I linked to explains the trick). If you're thinking of going, I suggest that you not read it first. Go and appreciate the art and then look at how it's done.

The current show has six paintings (hey, I said it was small). Three or four (I forget) are "scene" paintings like I described; the other two are collections of objects (e.g. a box of Brillo pads next to a carton of orange juice next to...). The scenes worked much better for me; while everything produced the visual effect, I found that I really don't care about wacky pseudo-rotation of a box of Brillo pads next to a carton of orange juice. It was much more interesting to watch bookcases or clouds or bits of a garden dance across my view.

The paintings had price tags next to them, so I assume that in theory you could buy them, but at the posted prices I don't think anyone in my circle of friends will be buying. Actually, even if all my friends and I pooled our discretionary money for a single purchase we probably wouldn't be buying. But looking's free. :-) (I also found myself thinking -- incorrectly, I'm sure -- "hey, I grok the trick; I could do this".)

The show is at the Mendelson gallery, 5742 Ellsworth. Caveat: the 5700 block of Ellsworth is more than one block long; I thought I had missed it when I got to a corner while walking up from 5705 or so. I guess Shadyside is weird. Anyway, it's a tiny little gallery in a house (or what looks like a house), so don't worry if you seem to be leaving the main business district.

I'm not sure what their hours are -- no weeknights without appointments, I'm told (our company had an appointment last night), but I believe they're open on weekend afternoons. I think the show is here for another week or so.