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 Trio. It’s a digital piece that was made from the mandala I created that you saw in our first week of this Op Art month. I changed and multiplied it, and set the three new mandalas at an angle against a background of warped lines. As usual with these pieces, my goal is to disorient and make the viewer question their visual clues to reality.

You can click  the image to see a bigger version.

Meanwhile, Monday on The AIR, we have a special marathon of Harrah’s Hard & Heavy from 7 AM to 3 PM. These eight episodes of Lee Harrah’s Heavy Metal Hoedown give you a glimpse into what makes Lee tick, musically. You can hear HH&H every Friday night at Midnight. At 3 PM on Prognosis, Herman Linte shows us how Prog-rock fared in the time of punk, and that’s followed by a classic Prognosis and an evening of Psychedelic Shack and Radio Free Charleston.

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

Later today in PopCult we’ll have day nine of our guide to VirtuALL FestivALL, with updates on today’s events, a video throwback and more of our Monday Morning Art Exhibit.