Richard Anuszkiewicz, a pioneering practitioner of Op Art in the United States before that perception-altering style was even given a name in the 1960s, died on May 19 at his home in Englewood, N.J. He was 89. Anyone’s who’s seen my geometric abstract works has seen the undeniable influence that Anuszkiewicz has had on my work. His pioneering work that combined mathematics with color composition into a sublime style that was both complex and simple, enigmatic and solvable. When I began making art primarily in a digital medium, I found that I could emulate his style, and use it to springboard into new areas of expression. For the month of June, Monday Morning Art will feature new works by me, inspired by the work of Richard Anuszkiewicz.

Today’s piece is called “Carnival.” In it, I created a variety of colliding patterns, then warped the image, causing them to curve…and then added more patterns and then colors to create a bit of a cacophony of different layers. After creating the general pattern, I then painted over it digitally, so give it a subtle non-geometic texture.  The end result reminded me of the clash of light and colors that you find at a traveling carnival, so I called it that.

You can click the top image if you want to see it even larger than that.

Meanwhile, Monday on The AIR, we have a special marathon of Prognois from 7 AM to 7 PM. While we don’t have a new show from Herman Linte this week, we are bringing you six programs which are each devoted to a single progressive rock group for two solid hours. You will hear blocks of music from YES, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Gong, Refugee, Pink Floyd and Triumverat.

You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on this embedded radio player…