Hidden in Plain Sight, Illusionals #5

Up close, a kaleidoscope of geometric colour fields. Step back, and a woman in a wide-brimmed hat emerges, her pink lips the only smooth surface on the canvas. This is the central play of Illusionals: from a distance, a face appears; up close, the image dissolves into paint. Recalling Warhol's multiplied lips, the mouth is set into the pixel grid as a textureless surface that disrupts its order and sits on the canvas like another layer of reality. Around it, every square is painted by hand, one by one, in thick impasto, reviving pop art's central irony in today's visual language. The eye builds the portrait from fragments, and asks: which is the image, and which the illusion?