Come see Illusive Illusions by Caroline Graham at the Aperture Gallery. We hope you stay and get lost within the striking shapes and colors. You can find more of their work @_carldoesart on Instagram!

A reception is planned March 9th from 6 to 7pm. We hope you stop by, meet the artist and have some food! Follow @uovisualarts for more info.

Artist bio:

Caroline Graham, or Carl Does Art, is an abstract artist who creates visual illusions through colors, grids, shapes, patterns, and textures. Their abstract journey began during their first year of architecture school when they were taught to view the built environment as a composition of parts. The first key part they noticed was that the world is composed of orthogonal grids and patterns. Every time they saw grids and patterns interacting, their mind perceived it in figure-ground to understand the logic behind them.  

Viewing the built environment in figure-ground inspired their first gridded works, such as Illusive Corner and Axon View of Morton Hall. Both pieces represent how grids and perspective work together to trick the eye while still creating a cohesive whole. The illusionary aspect of these pieces shows how often patterns in our surroundings are missed, but through closer observation it can be easy to understand how their interactions inform a design.  

After a lot of experimentation with orthogonal lines and grids, Caroline developed an interest for the organic and unpredictable patterns found in nature and human emotion. They created distorted grids to exhibit how life does not function within a linear timeline, and that new experiences as an emerging adult can feel chaotic, shown in Never-ending Swirls, Blip No.1, and Cut n’ Paste No.2.  

Their newer pieces Emotional Contagion, Terrestrial Entities, Hidden Figures, and Sunbursts move away from the linear grid and experiment with the organic flow of experience, illustrating how their mind interprets emotions and feelings as physical beings. These pieces convey the interplay of color, shape, shading, and texture working together to create a sense of ambivalence, a common state of being experienced during the creation process.