A powerful and disorienting view of depth, movement and perception, Joel Zelikovitz as influenced by Patrick Hughes, and Mark Rothco takes full joy in creating powerful pieces that alters the reality of the viewer. My passion in art started in 1996. I have enjoyed my artistic path learning fundamental skills from still life drawing and painting, portraiture, and full-life drawings and paintings. Critics and instructors have praised my colour sense. Seldom do I struggle creating tone, hue, light and shade. Colour is a satisfying process of application for me that always seems to work out. I stumbled into the works of Patrick Hughes at the Toronto International Art Show held at the Metro Convention Centre two winters ago. (January 2003) The perspective paintings of Patrick Hughes intrigued and inspired me. I craved to delve into the ultimate perception-realm of the of reverse perspective after seeing his work, and, like the characters in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I couldnt resist the urge to create a piece for myself. I didnt take any notes about Hughes works the day I saw them, partly because I have big concerns about copying another artists work or ideas, and partly because I wasnt aware of my passion to create a reverse perspective that would soon consume me. Hughes reverspectives are surreal scenes depicting buildings, rooms and landscapes. I, however follow my impulse to depict reverse perspectives mainly with colour. Mark Rothco does to colour what Hughes does to space. Their influence is obvious. As a young child and early teen that spent an inordinate amount of time thinking and daydreaming (much adoing about nothing), I recall specifically staring into corners of a room and visually popping the perspective of a corner of that room in and out. The day I was exposed to Patrick Hughes reversperspectives was the day I knew how to create one and was the day I decided to create one of my own. It took about 4 months of daydreaming and pondering until thought transformed into action. Two months later I was thrilled with the results. Reverse perspective paintings look flat at first, but when the viewer moves, the 3-D painted surface that supports the perspective view is exaggerated by the depth of the image and allows the viewer a shifted perspective far more then the brain normally sees. The illusion is made possible by painting the view in reverse to the relief of the surface that is the points that stick out the furthest are painted with the most distant shades and colours. When you look at the work in person you have to look at it until the illusion pops into view.(some people have to close one eye or squint) When it does "pop" into view, if you move to the left, the three peaks move with you and point at you, if you move to the right, the peaks follow you. It is quite remarkable what happens with this piece. I built the "canvas" with cardboard, and plaster gauze strips. It is about 3' x 4'. It is fun to put it on the floor and walk around it. The peaks follow you in a circle. The illusion does not work on the two dimensional plain of a computer screen.