Oleg Shupliak is not your run-of-the-mill artist, who simply paints nice pictures; he’s an optical illusionist. He cleverly conceals hidden faces within the beautiful surroundings he creates on his canvas. The sheer brilliance of his creations compels one to unravel the secrets hidden therein.
This Ukrainian artist started working on his series of optical illusion oil paintings as in 1991. He terms it ‘Dvovzory’, meaning ‘Double vision’ or ‘Double look’. Such are the effects he infuses in his paintings that finding craftily buried faces in them becomes most challenging, even impossible at times.
This 52-year-old artist was born in Ukraine and opted to study architecture that he loved after his first passion, painting. In 1991, he graduated as an architect from the Lviv Polytechnic National University, Ukraine. It was while graduating that he thought out his unique art and composed his unique oil paintings.
Oleg’s gift of creating double pictures in a single painting is astounding. In some, he places a second image behind the characters, colors, and objects of the first image. In others, he makes the second image clearly visible, while the first image remains buried. Both kinds of paintings challenge the viewers to find the hidden faces.
The hidden faces are mainly of famous people, such as Uncle Sam, John Lennon, Zeus, Charles Darwin, and others. Little wonder his unique approach has made him one of the most accomplished optical illusionists of the modern-day art world.
Of course, such brilliance cannot go unnoticed. Oleg was not only made a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine in 2000 but was also a recipient of many awards. He was awarded the title ‘Honored Artist of Ukraine’. He also received a gold medal and a diploma laureate ‘for excellence in creating a unique style of the art’ from the International Foundation ‘Cultural Heritage’ at St. Petersburg, Russia.
In 1996, he won the second prize in the regional exhibition of Sacred Art held at Ternopil, Ukraine and first prize in 2013 in logo designing in the Ukrainian Open Competition, commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Taras Shevchenko.
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