Optical Optics ~ Into the Mind's Eye of Julian Stanczak
Written by HSU Art Intern Heather Vigil

Julian Stanczak's optical illusion art, based on mathematical principles and color theory, may appear computer generated but are actually completed by the artist's hand. The meticulously repeated patterns combined with playful color have allowed Stanczak to force his viewer's eyes to question the way to perceive pattern and color, surface and depth. The trickery of what is coined Op Art is that flat surfaces are seen to billow, undulate and warp - delighting some viewers and making others feel queasy.

Born on his grandparent's farm is a small village in southeast Poland to Jewish parents, Stanczak and his family were forced to internment at a Siberian camp during WWII. After fleeing Russia, Stanczak and his family moved to Uganda where in 1948 Stanczak had his first solo exhibition at the Stanley Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya. In May 1950, after a short stay in England, Stanczak and his family immigrated to the United States. Settling in Cleveland, Stanczak attended Yale University and studied renowned color theorist Josef Albers. Receiving his Master of Fine Arts from Yale in 1956, from 1957 to 1964 Stanczak taught at the Art Academy of Cleveland in Ohio. In 1964 he became professor of painting at the Cleveland Art Institute.

The world renowned progenitor of the Op Art movement, which emerged and flourished during the 1960's and 1970's in the area of Geometric Abstraction, Julian Stanczak has experienced the worst life has had to offer. From the Nazi invasion of his homeland to experiencing starvation, sickness and beatings, which almost prevented the use of his right hand (Stanczak is right handed), Julian Stanczak's art adds a calming tone to our world of anger,

hatred and chaos. Icons of peace and order, Stanczak's paintings prompt their view to realize the contrasting messiness of our everyday surroundings. Stanczak's paintings reach the emotion of joyful serenity through the titillating complexity of emerging grids appearing from hidden light sources. Sheets of overlapping light and color bulge and fade in to the rolling surfaces over the flat materials Stanczak utilized in his creations. Though Julian Stanczak's paintings lack an overt narrative, they definitely are full of unabashedly big themes about the larger picture of daily life.