This thesis probed into Optical Art, its historical context of development, and how the context, reflected in works, assisted creation. The researcher tried to reveal the implication of the works from an interpretive perspective, and through a review of literatures, process of creation, along with visual design, formation, and color.

There are five chapters in this thesis. Chapter one is an introduction. Chapter two is my review of literatures. Chapter three is the discourses on ideas of creation. Chapter four is the description about the works in the exhibition, “Form and Shape”. Chapter five, the conclusion, presents the content of the thesis. In the introduction of chapter one, the importance of human vision in the five senses was discussed, with examples from the psychologist R. Arnheim, who thought that perceptional concepts stored in human brains produce advanced intellectual functions like judgment, reasoning, abstraction, conclusion, calculation, etc. The researcher then further probed into the three dimensions of the purposes of study: element of geometry, the three properties of color, and interactions between works and viewers; and with the implication of the works, set the boundary of the research, purposes of the research, and presented the structure and procedure of the research. In chapter two, the review of documents focused on unscrambling historical context and definitions of terms. Besides, it was proposed that the creative thinking of the researcher was influenced by, in color, Paul Cezanne and Georges Seurat; in shapes, by Kasimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian. There are also Futurism, the concept of formation in Constructivism on connections of movement, establishing the connective development between Optical Art and dynamic works. In the end the researcher introduced Josef Albers, Victor Vasarely, Bridget Riley, Larry Poons, J.R Soto, V.Tadaske Kuwayama, Yaacov Agam, describing the expression developed in the art works at that time. Chapter three is the discourses on ideas of creation, which from vision and kinesthesis, probed into the difference between the levels of perceptions and senses, differences among self-movement phenomenon, induced movement, and stroboscopic movement, in visual kinetics, along with discussions on works of Alexander Calder, Jean Tinguely, and works that employed lights nowadays, all of which formed the researcher’s idea of creation. Chapter four is the description of the exhibition “Form and Shape”, which is an integration of theoretical foundations of previous three chapters. These works are created with exploration into historical contexts, understanding about implications in the actual works of Optical Art, and creativeness and zeal of the researcher. The researcher tried to present works that are different from previous works of visual expression, from a different perspective and ideas of creation. In chapter five, the conclusion, the researcher reflected his own process of research and creation, trying to give his understanding and suggestions to those who intend to go further in this field, or who try to create new thinking or directions.