Devorah Sperber is an American

installation artist Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

known for creating works out of spools of thread, chenille pipe cleaners and map tacks that act as optical illusions. Some of her work has involved using thousands of spools of thread to create pixelated versions of iconic works of art by famous artists. Her naming scheme for these works generally follows the format "After rtist ork. For example, her creation of the '' Mona Lisa'' using spools of thread is titled ''After The Mona Lisa 2''. The spools are hung in long, adjacent columns to create a

pointillist Pointillism (, ) is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat and Paul Signac developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term "Pointillism" wa ...

, inverted abstraction of a famous painting. When viewed by the naked eye, they are barely recognizable. When viewed through an optical device, usually a "viewing sphere" (a transparent sphere the size of a baseball) placed several feet in front of the spools), the abstractions are inverted and shrunk into a remarkably detailed and faithful image of the original painting. The resulting image is usually distorted the way objects are distorted when viewed through a

fisheye lens A fisheye lens is an ultra wide-angle lens that produces strong visual distortion intended to create a wide panoramic or hemispherical image. Fisheye lenses achieve extremely wide angles of view, well beyond any rectilinear lens. Instead of pr ...

: objects in the center are larger than they appear, and objects in the periphery are smaller than they appear. The

horizon The horizon is the apparent line that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This line divides all viewing directions based on whether i ...

of the image viewed through the viewing sphere also bend and curve, depending on the viewer's perspective. Sperber has wittily used the fish eye; in her rendering of the Mona Lisa, the Mona Lisa's "elusive smile appears, changes, and disappears in a dramatic and humorous fashion". Sperber exhibited at the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

from January 26 to June 17, 2007 and at the

Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is a museum in a converted Arnold Print Works factory building complex located in North Adams, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing ar ...

in 2008.

External links

Devorah Sperber's website

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sperber, Devorah American installation artists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people