You want to interpret this, don’t you? It’s clearly something. Your first impulse is to see something in the middle that is set on a black background. It could be a monument with inscriptions. It could be a building with wobbly sides. You can keep on guessing, but whatever it is, it’s big. This interpretation is odd, since there’s nothing in the image to compare it to, that would establish size.
You may even find this “structure” vaguely threatening. But if your eyes drift to the edges of the painting, all illusion-bets are off. At the edges you can see that what you’re looking at is paint brushed on a flat surface. So you sigh with relief. But then your attention immediately drifts back to “the thing” in the middle and the puzzle starts all over again.
If that weren’t enough, you can clearly see that the thing in the middle is not painted on top of the black, but the black impinges on the thing. Therefore, you can’t really see this thing as the foreground, as the object of the painting. Now what? Can you call the black the foreground? Oh, but that would be so counter-intuitive. Yes, indeed. There’s no final answer. That’s why you’re captivated by this painting.
Karen Gerrard, acrylic on canvas, 40” x 30”
https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2017/01/19/inventing-an-alphabet/
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artamaze by Katherine Hilden 