Lenticular images have been used for
years as premiums in cereal boxes and 3D
baseball cards to show depth or movement.
In recent years, they have often been used
as DVD covers for some of Hollywood’s
largest releases as well as in store displays
at large retail stores. By using lenticular
lens printing, Markoya challenges our
understanding of perception in his
artwork. His innovative approach to art
leverages optical technology, mathematical
principles and classic art in order to create
an entirely different view of the universe.
Markoya, who now lives in St.
Petersburg, has also worked as a research
scientist and engineer, earning more
than 30 patents involving holograph and
complex animations and 3D graphics.
He combines modern technology with
traditional art, merging his complex and
often abstract oil paintings with fractal
geometry, mathematics and holography to
achieve a cerebral view of the world, which
captures the imagination and emotion of
the viewers.
He uses fractals, the infinitely complex
patterns that are self-similar across difficult
scales, to help him achieve these effects,
along with lenticular lens printing, thus
creating an illusion of dimension in
distance and space similar to works done
by the artists of the Renaissance and Dalí.
Markoya seeks to achieve a 3D depth of
field from a flat 2D surface.
In We are Stardust, the artist gives scars to two
coronavirus-affected figures. One figure laments death,
while the other celebrates surviving the pandemic.
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 | TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE 91