Stare at Kyung Woo Han's "Green Room" for long enough and you'll start to wonder where reality ends and the bizarre glimpses of a fictional universe begin. That's because the Korean artist's life-sized optical illusion room is a feat of design deception, created with just an empty space, a few pieces of unusual furniture and two shades of seafoam green paint.
The result is a stirring tableau that appears partially submerged in the most ethereal of liquid. Kyung Woo Han used wire, custom-made chairs and tables distorted into utter symmetry, and a wild sense of perception to construct the impressive installation. Originally created in 2009, the work combines the whimsy of a Salvador Dali suspension with the deliberate color palette of artists like Josef Albers, amounting to a perfect three-dimensional visual feast.
"People see what they want to see," the artist ominously explained to It's Nice That.
Having a hard time getting your bearings? Try fixing your line of sight on the faint line separating the "underwater" portion of the room from the dry upper half. The symmetry of the furniture and the subtle change in paint color gives the illusion of a reflective liquid surface. Oh, the beauty of art.
(All images courtesy of Kyung Woo Han)