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OP ART, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions.

The term OP ART first appeared in print in Time magazine in October 1964, though works which might now be described as "op art" had been produced for several years previously.

OP ART works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made in only black and white. When the viewer looks at them, the impression is given of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibration, patterns, or alternatively, of swelling or warping.

First and foremost, OP ART exists to fool the eye. Op art compositions create a sort of visual tension, in the viewer's mind, that gives works the illusion of movement.

In OP ART, as in perhaps no other artistic school, positive and negative spaces in a composition are of equal importance. Op Art could not be created without both.

It can be argued that none of OP ART would've been possible - let alone embraced by the public - without the prior Abstract and Expressionist movements that de-emphasized (or, in many cases, eliminated) representational subject matter.

Victor Vasarely (1906-1997)

The acknowledged leader of the OP ART movement. His innovations in color and optical illusion have had a strong influence on many modern artists.

Vasarely's painting Zebras (1938) is made up entirely of curvilinear black and white stripes that are not contained by contour lines. Consequently, the stripes appear to both meld into and burst forth from the surrounding background of the composition.

There was a time when meanings were focused and reality could be fixed; when that sort of belief disappeared, things became uncertain and open to interpretation.

Bridget Riley

For me nature is not landscape, but the dynamism of visual forces.

Bridget Riley

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