Turbo 1-65 1965

Curator: Good morning. We are now in front of Edna Andrade's "Turbo 1-65", painted in 1965 using acrylic. Any initial thoughts? Editor: Wow, talk about an optical illusion! It feels like the painting is actively trying to pull me into its center. Like a bizarre, groovy drainpipe! Curator: Andrade was a master of Op Art. That vibrant dance between turquoise and orange, the converging lines... it’s designed to stimulate the retina, almost trick the eye. Those colors evoke the late 60s for me. Editor: Absolutely, there’s a definite retro-futuristic vibe. Those zig-zagging outer patterns around the radiating core...they could be staircases, mazes, circuit boards, hieroglyphs. Something ancient, something ultra modern and technical! What might it mean? Curator: Op Art, at its core, often investigates perception itself. It challenges our assumptions about seeing and interpreting visual data, pushing abstraction. The visual system transforms line, color, and shape relationships into a dynamic pattern that shifts and pulses, playing on gestalt principles. Editor: It feels almost aggressively energetic. But despite that initial burst, I'm drawn to that muted core, like the source of all this power. Perhaps it speaks to how dynamism is underpinned by calm, or chaos contained? The illusion tricks us into questioning where we fix our focus. Curator: I find it fascinating that despite the rigid geometry, the painting possesses a certain fluidity, doesn't it? Andrade cleverly avoided static rigidity. Even if it's hard edge, there's an undeniable, paradoxical motion! Editor: For me it recalls certain ancient cosmologies, of galaxies and energies, rendered in an ultramodern graphic style, as well as more contemporary metaphors, the digital networks upon which so much is predicated! I really see it. Curator: Well, seeing as our perceptions have thoroughly been challenged for the day, let’s proceed. Editor: Gladly, and perhaps with slightly less vibrant shades!