Innovation I

Varnelis’ interest in the optical illusions created by repetitive motifs was sparked by his visit to the 1965 exhibition ‘The Responsive Eye’ at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The exhibition featured work by pioneers of Optical Art, such as the British artist Bridget Riley, the Croatians Ivan Picelj and Miroslav Šutej, and the Hungarian Victor Vasarely, who explored how vision responds to colour, light and patterns. For the next two decades, Varnelis consistently explored the phenomenon of illusion, producing three-dimensional abstractions. At first glance, Innovation I features two letter Gs placed side by side, reflecting each other as if in a mirror: their soft and rounded shapes are reminiscent of inflatable mattresses or toys. On prolonged viewing, a new form emerges, an elongated hexagon with a ‘ribbon’. According to the artist’s son, like many post-painterly abstractionists, Varnelis aimed to evoke a sense of mechanical precision, and enjoyed confounding viewers who found it hard to believe that his paintings were created by hand (cf. Kazys Varnelis, ‘Abstraktusis klasicistas’ [Abstract Classicist], in Kazys Varnelis, ed. Daiva Vaišnienė, Vilnius: National Museum of Lithuania, 2022, p. 88).

Text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album ARTISTS ON THE MOVE (2025). Compiler and text author Laura Petrauskaitė
Expositions: “Optics & Structure. Works by Kazys Varnelis: 1967–1977”, 30 June – 20 August 2017, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius (curator Kazys Varnelis Jr.); "Free and Unfree. Lithuanian Art between 1945 and 1990", 9 September 2021 – 30 April 2022, Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE (Užupio St. 40, Vilnius). Curators Dovilė Barcytė and Ieva Burbaitė; ‘The Collectible Collector. Artworks of Kazys Varnelis from private collections in Lithuania', 17 May 2023 – 29 October 2023, Kazys Varnelis House-Museum, Vilnius (curator Gabrielė Paškevičiūtė).

Varnelis’ interest in the optical illusions created by repetitive motifs was sparked by his visit to the 1965 exhibition ‘The Responsive Eye’ at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The exhibition featured work by pioneers of Optical Art, such as the British artist Bridget Riley, the Croatians Ivan Picelj and Miroslav Šutej, and the Hungarian Victor Vasarely, who explored how vision responds to colour, light and patterns. For the next two decades, Varnelis consistently explored the phenomenon of illusion, producing three-dimensional abstractions. At first glance, Innovation I features two letter Gs placed side by side, reflecting each other as if in a mirror: their soft and rounded shapes are reminiscent of inflatable mattresses or toys. On prolonged viewing, a new form emerges, an elongated hexagon with a ‘ribbon’. According to the artist’s son, like many post-painterly abstractionists, Varnelis aimed to evoke a sense of mechanical precision, and enjoyed confounding viewers who found it hard to believe that his paintings were created by hand (cf. Kazys Varnelis, ‘Abstraktusis klasicistas’ [Abstract Classicist], in Kazys Varnelis, ed. Daiva Vaišnienė, Vilnius: National Museum of Lithuania, 2022, p. 88).

Text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album ARTISTS ON THE MOVE (2025). Compiler and text author Laura Petrauskaitė
Expositions: “Optics & Structure. Works by Kazys Varnelis: 1967–1977”, 30 June – 20 August 2017, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius (curator Kazys Varnelis Jr.); "Free and Unfree. Lithuanian Art between 1945 and 1990", 9 September 2021 – 30 April 2022, Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE (Užupio St. 40, Vilnius). Curators Dovilė Barcytė and Ieva Burbaitė; ‘The Collectible Collector. Artworks of Kazys Varnelis from private collections in Lithuania', 17 May 2023 – 29 October 2023, Kazys Varnelis House-Museum, Vilnius (curator Gabrielė Paškevičiūtė).