My 3D print Now you see me, now you don’t! is a lenticular or agamographic artwork that uses optical illusion to create changes when you look at it from a different angle. The first lenticular artwork I saw many years ago was in a surprisingly memorable medical history exhibition in a forgotten European museum. Among sculptures of cutaways of pregnant women, depictions of treatments such as bloodletting, and various scary medical instruments of the day, I remember walking back and forth in front of a large oil painting watching in amazement as the picture changed depending on my vantage point.
The technique of lenticular imaging first developed in the Renaissance was called tabula scalata (picture ladder) and was used for such things as double portraiture. See figure 1. The intellectuals and artists of the time were very interested in perspective. Interest in this type of optics was rekindled after the Industrial Revolution with the introduction of stereoscopes, kinescopes and other various three-dimensional and motion picture machines designed to display images and the photographs to the masses. By the early 20th century, lenticular postcards became a niche novelty at the same time motion pictures were exploding. In my childhood I remember seeing cards, key fobs, and pens with pictures of moving dancing women. Despite these rather frivolous uses, the concepts of interweaving images taken from different angles continued to fuel research in colour photography, 3D animation, holography, virtual reality, right up to today’s metaverse.
As a member of the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild (CBBAG) I had the opportunity to step back in time and learn how to make my own lenticular artwork, transforming 2D prints into a “moving” sculptural artwork. I used two prints I had previously made – one was a linocut beetle and the other was some Chine colléed paper from a failed print. I prepared a scaffold base (Figure 2) by folding stone paper accordion style and painting it black. I then cut the two prints into strips and glued them in place on the scaffold, one set on the left side of the fold and the other print on the right side.
The resulting piece — Now you see me, now you don’t! — is 7.5 X 11.5 X .75 inches in a 9 X 20-inch shadow box frame.
Thanks to the lenticular mounting system, the beetle appears and disappears depending on the viewer’s angle as seen in the short video.This made this work a perfect submission for the exhibition “Picturing the Invisible: Sights/ Sites Unseen” held at the Nepean Creative Arts Centre in late 2023 and will be exhibited at the getting to know you exhibition at the ASP Gallery, Ottawa October 3 – November 27, 2024.
References:
“The history of Lenticular Printing – Holographic Images from the Past, Present and Future.”
YouTube, uploaded by Jared Hoffman’s Lenticular Printing Masterclass, 25 Oct 2022,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxvYGOZF7L4
“Tabula scalata.” Wikipedia, updated 11 Feb 2024,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_scalata