Esther Stocker

In her large-format works Esther Stocker (*1974 Silandro, IT) examines the relationship between order, space and painting. She questions assumptions such as the existence of space and engages intensively with spatial structures and spatial experience. The geometric environments she creates are designed to challenge spatial perception. With precisely applied adhesive tape she visually transforms spatial depth into a flat, one-dimensional surface. Her mostly black-and-white works – she rarely uses colour – create a contrast between the fundamental design concept and visual perception by overlapping grids so that the image's logical structure triggers a deeper visual experience. Stocker eliminates spatial depth, capturing on the painted surface only the flat modulation of the geometric form. Her approach is at odds with the concept of spatial representation propounded by such op artists as Victor Vasarely (*1906 Pécs, HU; †1997 Paris, FR). While Vasarely, the father of op art, seeks to create space in an image, Stocker is driven to eliminate it by destroying any distinction between foreground and background, and reducing grid displacements to a single level. Though appearing random at first, the new geometrical forms that result are in fact based on precisely overlapping grids. Despite their different approaches, Stocker and Vasarely have one thing in common, namely, the idea that spatial perception in a picture is nothing but an illusion.