Sonka 1956 - 1989

Victor Vasarely made this work, Sonka, with flat areas of strong colour defining geometric shapes. There's no visible brushwork here, so it feels more like an image that’s been printed or built up from coloured paper. The shapes in Sonka jostle and overlap one another. Take the circle towards the top right of the image, for example: it’s perfectly round, and a solid block of colour, but it sits right next to a sharp-edged polygon. Then there’s the larger striped circle, which is half black and half green, creating a kind of moiré pattern. It reminds me of Bridget Riley, who played with optical illusions and the way our eyes perceive patterns. Vasarely wasn’t just making pretty pictures; he was investigating how we see and process information. He invites us to question what we think we know about shapes, colours, and spatial relationships.