Written by: Emily Sabens, Public Relations Intern

When looking at “Seeping Light,” located in the Ball Brothers Foundation Gallery, your eyes may do a double-take. It seems that bright rays of sunlight are streaming through the canvas. As you take in the many colored squares, it’s difficult to see where one color starts and another one ends.

Julian Stanczak. Seeping Light, 1972. Acrylic on canvas. David Owsley Museum of Art. Gift of John and Therese Weakland. 1998.007.000

Artist Julian Stanczak often created these types of optical illusions within his artworks. Born in Poland, Stanczak was forced into a work camp as a child at the beginning of World War II, where injuries he sustained made him lose use of his right arm. This didn’t stop him, though, from pursuing a career as an artist.

Stanczak eventually moved to the U.S., where he played a key role in advancing the Op Art movement; in fact, he helped coin the movement’s name when his first exhibition opened in New York, titled “Optical Paintings.”

Color, lines, grids and squares always played important roles in Stanczak works. According to The New York Times, Stanczak used this type of style in order to forget about the traumas he endured during his childhood and teen years.

“I did not want to be bombarded daily by the past,” Stanczak said. “I looked for anonymity of actions through nonreferential abstract art.”

To see Stanczak’s “Seeping Light,” visit DOMA today; we’re open every day until 4:30 p.m.