Installation artist, land artist, and cofounder of Prague’s Illusion Art Museum, Patrik Proško uses a carefully curated collection of found objects to create mind-boggling anamorphic portraits that toy with the laws of perspective and challenge one’s perception of space and form.
Anamorphic art is a complicated form that plays with perspective to create an image that, from most viewpoints, appears distorted or unrecognizable. But when viewed from one specific angle, the true form of the artwork emerges clearly.
The portrait of inventor Nikola Tesla was built with discarded washing machines, televisions, computers, and other technology that relies on the AC power Tesla invented. The remarkable dual portrait of composers Bedřich Smetana & Antonín Dvořák was built on a grand piano using old guitars, drums, cymbals, and music cables.
The figures Proško chooses to portray in this labor- and thought-intensive process are ones who have left an indelible mark on culture, mainly artists and political figures, but also Jasper Newton Daniel (AKA Jack Daniel) for good measure. The objects used to create these portraits echo with their legacy, so that each element hums a bit with the essence of the subject it’s been used to portray.
Stepping away from a given sculpture, your mind might just start to build anamorphics all its own. Maybe a Van Gogh from a gathering of sunflowers, boots, easels, and ears? A David Foster Wallace from tennis rackets, books, do rags, and typewriters? These portraits that Proško creates don’t just illuminate the subject — they illuminate the objects all around us.
