With some simple black markings that mimic the architecture of the gallery walls and windows, artist Regina Silveira makes visitors feel as if they’re walking on air. In an installation called ‘Depth’ at the Atlas Sztuki Gallery in Lodz, Poland, Silveira applied a large-format, digitally generated image to the flat floor surface to make it seem as if the room extended four stories below onlookers’ feet.

Silveira plays with light, shadow and perspective to create the optical illusions that make up the bulk of her oeuvre. Currently showing at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut is an installation called In Absentia, which gives empty pedestals exaggerated shadows that depict art objects that aren’t actually present.

In Octopus (Track Series), a 2009 installation at Alexander Gray Associates, Silveira applied cut black adhesive vinyl tracks in overlapping patterns on the gallery walls. The tracks taper from those of a full-sized vehicle into the half-inch or so width of the wheels of a toy car, making it seem as if the cars are actually zooming away on a curved surface.

“I have always had a very free, “disengaged” approach to all media, on one hand mixing them, on the other trying to use them in their essential values,” Silveira said in an interview with Philagrafika. “My more important and constant investigation is not about the media itself -for me this would be a wrong question-; my most important concern, more inclusive than that of media, is the nature of visual representation, its function and the role (poetic and politic) of the image as the intermediary between perception and the world.”

They may not play music any longer, but these records definitely have something to say. Artist Carlos Aires created this series, entitled “Love is in the Air”, by using a digital process to laser-cut shapes drawn from images of pornography and disaster and juxtaposing them with innocent scenes of animals and children.

It may not be obvious at first, but this laser-cut vinyl art is more than just simple shapes. What is suggested but not shown is just as much a part of each work as the silhouette itself, and even the text on each record imbues subtle meaning – such as the “Touch Me” title on the body of a muscled man.

Mostly known for his photography, Aires is certainly known for deviating from the conventional in his art, which consists of uncommon subjects like dwarfs and parks known for gay sex cruising in a hazy, fairytale-esque style that imitates romantic painting.

Raised in Spain and currently dividing his time between his birth city of Málaga and Antwerp, Belgium, Aires earned an MA in Photography at Ohio State University. His entire portfolio can be viewed on his website, CarlosAires.com.