Loca Miraculi, Gallery Three: Optical Devices

Loca Miraculi_room 3_painted illusion on right wall

Loca Miraculi_exhibition entrance wood columns

Loca Miraculi_room 1_wood cabinet surrounded with branches

Loca Miraculi_room 1_wood cabinet with deer and birds

Loca Miraculi_room 1_cabinet shelves with taxidermied birds

Loca Miraculi_cabinet detail with deer and roosters

Loca Miraculi_room 1_wood cabinet with minerals shells

Loca Miraculi, Gallery Three: Optical Devices

dimensions variable

2008-2013

mixed media

Gallery three of Loca Miraculi included a group of optical illusions created by Martha Glowacki.

The illusions are examples of perspective distortions developed during the 1500s and 1600s. During this period, rules of perspective drawing were developed to help artists and architects represent three-dimensional space realistically on a two-dimensional plane.

At the same time, the rules of perspective were sometimes skewed, turning a representational view of reality into a distorted view. This idea fits into the cabinet of curiosities construct: these illusions make us question and wonder; they combine the natural and the artificial; and they have an element of secrecy and surprise.