Not Your Average Shark Baby



For my first artistic event, I went to an art gallery in my local community college’s museum. The museum is located on the Brookdale Community College campus and is called The Monmouth Museum. The specific gallery that I went to was called “Art of Illusion” and is only open from March fourth until April twenty-ninth. I chose to go to this event because I enjoy optical illusions or things that trick the human eye. I have been to art galleries like this one and I had high expectations for this event.

This gallery featured sixty-two pieces which were both two and three-dimensional. I was a little disappointed that much of the exhibit did not feature pieces that would be considered optical illusions. But I did find some very interesting pieces. My two favorite pieces featured images that were drawn flat on a piece on paper. These pieces where not hung on the wall but instead laid down on a table. When looking directly down on the piece, the image on the paper is distorted. In the middle of both pieces was a chrome cylinder, and when you looked at the cylinder at eye level, it reflexed the image on the paper and made it clear.

The one piece that I would say confused or confounded me was titled “shark baby”, by Maria Lupo. I would describe it as a figurine. It was a toy baby doll, no different than one you could buy at any toy store. The entire face and body was painted blue. Than the artist cut off the long mouth of a shark toy and pasted it over the baby’s mouth. The baby’s body was covered in what looked like the straw my mom puts in my Easter baskets. And last the artist removed both of the baby’s legs and reattached just one leg under the center of the torso to represent a fin.

Overall I enjoyed my experience viewing this gallery. I felt that I may have set my expectations a little too high, but I did see some interesting pieces. I also did not have to pay the entrance fee, so that was a plus. The only thing I felt that would have made my experience more enjoyable would have been if there were more works of optical illusion.