Enigma c. 1984

Isia Leviant made Enigma, and I can’t help but feel like it was done with some kind of ink or thin paint. Looking at this piece, I think about how artmaking is a process that's all about layering and building. There's a real sense of the physicality of the medium here; the way those lines radiate out, thick then thin, and those bands of color, red to purple, feel almost like they're breathing. You can see the artist's hand in the way the pigment is applied, smooth but also uneven in places, and it's those imperfections that give the work its character. It reminds me a little of Bridget Riley's work. But where she explores optical illusions with geometric precision, Leviant brings a more intuitive, handmade quality to the same exploration of perception. Both artists show us how art embraces ambiguity, always inviting multiple interpretations rather than fixed meanings.