In this sculpture created by Japanese artist Kumi Yamashita, the shadows cast by a group of carved wooden letters form the profile of a face when lit by a single light source (from the right).  Her artwork frequently uses simple objects, light and shadow to form human profiles and other likenesses.

More of her artwork can be viewed by visiting her personal website.

When it comes to creating motion illusions, Akiyoshi Kitaoka is in a league of his own.  In one of his latest examples below, titled Beating Heart, the pink and red heart appears to move on top of a green background.   If you slowly scroll the page up and down while looking at the image, it almost seems like the heart is actually beating.

More incredible motion illusions can be found on Akiyoshi Kitaoka’s site.

Looking back through the archives, I was surprised that something from the late Japanese artist Shigeo Fukuda had not been featured on An Optical Illusion yet.  During his lifetime, Fukuda produced well over a thousand poster designs (among other artistic endeavors that I am sure we will explore at a later time).  Many of his designs had some sort of deceptive element to them.  In his ambiguous work below, a black series of male legs and a white series of female legs appear to coexist in the same space.

In this square, the corridor part  (in between the green lines) appears to be tinted a light green.  In reality, this section of the square is entirely white.

This image was drawn by Professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka in 2007 for Visiome.

Today’s illusion is an older one.  And although you may have seen it floating around the Internet before, it still deserves another look.  We have not featured any natural optical illusions in a while and wanted to make sure one got posted this month.  Do you see the dancer in the tree?

Victor Vasarely is the father of Op Art and recognized as one of the 20th centuries most important artists.  His use of color, geometry and optical illusion in his art yielded fantastic results and influenced scores of younger artists.  As such, his paintings are in the permanent collections of museums around the globe and admired on a daily basis.  The example below shows a series of blue and red squares that come together to form a very ambiguous geometric pattern.

More of Victor Vasarely’s op art works can be found by reading the full post.  You can also find more by visiting the official website of Victor Vasarely.

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Stare at the black dot in the center of this image and watch the red stripes spin.  At first, they should appear to be moving in a clockwise direction.  After a short while, however, they will suddenly appear to reverse and start moving counter-clockwise.

If you lie on the ground and look directly up at a ceiling fan, you will notice the same type of effect.  For a similar effect, you might want to revisit the classic spinning dancer illusion where a dancing woman starts off spinning in one direction and then ends up spinning in the opposite direction.

One of the earliest optical illusions, known as the Troxler Effect, was another illusion where you stare at a dot in the center of a circle.  When you do so, the blue circle begins to slowly fade away.