mind

Help, I’m Stuck

in a Painting!

When the real world looks like Flatland

P

igment on canvas can be so vivid, with

brushstrokes so precise, that viewers may

need to remind themselves that they are

looking at depictions of life, rather than life itself.

Trompe l’oeils (from the French “deceives the

eye”) are spectacular examples of the sort of ar-

tistic deception in which a photorealistic portrayal

of a bowl of fresh berries can be nearly as mouth-

watering as the real fruit.

Installation artist Alexa Meade does not paint

trompe l’oeils. She does just the opposite. Where-

as trompe l’oeil art consists of making flat paint-

ings look like three-dimensional objects and peo-

ple, Meade’s reverse trompe l’oeils make 3-D ob-

jects and people look like flat paintings.

Meade uses the human body as her canvas—

including Ariana Grande’s body for her music vid-

eo God Is a Woman. The artist spends two to five ALEXA MEADE

Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Macknik are professors of

ophthalmology at the State University of New York and the organizers of the

Best Illusion of the Year Contest. They have co-authored Sleights of Mind:

What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions and

Champions of Illusion: The Science behind Mind-Boggling Images and

Mystifying Brain Puzzles.

ILLUSIONS