Ed Mieczkowski

Among the leading practitioners of Op art in America, Ed Mieczkowski produces optically complex paintings and drawings that reveal the malleability of perception. Together with Ernst Benkert and Francis Hewitt, Mieczkowski formed the Anonima Group (1960-71). In his works, like Iso-Local (1965), he investigates the visual and psychological resonance of shapes, patterns, and colors. Rendered in black, white, and gray, with a series of straight lines overlaid onto cylindrical forms, the work seems almost three-dimensional, its patterning like furrows cut into the surface of the canvas.