Walking past this artist's portraits will blow your mind, as one face transforms to another
Optical illusions are always fun to play with, and the paintings of Sergi Cadenas are no exception.
If you walk up to one of Cadenas's portraits from one direction, you'll see a face. If you walk up to it from the opposite direction, you'll also see a faceābut a totally different one. Sometimes it's a young face that ages as you walk from one side to another, like this one:
Or this one:
Sometimes it's a face that has the...um...face part removed.
And sometimes it's a face that simply becomes another face.
He can even turn Marilyn Monroe into Albert Einstein.
You can see that the painting is created in verticle 3-D lines of some sort and surmise that the two different faces exist on opposite, angled sides of those lines. But how? It almost feels like magic, the way the paintings transform as you walk past them.
This image of one of Cadenas's paintings up against a mirror lets you see both sides of it at once, which is super cool.
What's particularly impressive about Cadenas's art is that he is a self-taught artist who didn't even become a painter until he was 30. He got the idea for his dual-image oil paintings from "flip images" he'd seen when he was a kid. He creates his works in his home studio in small village in the Catalonia region of Spain and uses friends, family, and neighbors as models. It takes him about a month to complete one of his paintings.
How does he create the dual images? He fills an icing bag with painter's paste and uses a decorator tip to create verticle relief lines with two 45 degree angles. (Watching a neighbor who was a pastry chef gave him the idea.) Then he sketches out the basic facial features with pencil before painting the different faces from the two different sides.
"You have to get used to the lines being broken and not continuous on the canvas," Cadenas said in an interview with dw.com. But other than that, it's like any other painting. He completes one side, then completes the other.
"It's the magic, the surprise effect that I like best," he said.
Much of Cadenas's work hangs in people's private collections, though some museums and galleries such as the Galeria Jordi Barnadas gallery in Barcelona have some of his pieces on display.
Artist Makes Portraits That Age As You Move Around Themwww.youtube.com
Such great creativity and innovation, not to mention sheer talent. Here's to the artists who enrich our world with their incredible work.
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There's a reason why some people can perfectly copy accents, and others can't
Turns out, there's a neurodivergent link.
A woman in black long sleeve shirt stands in front of mirror.
Have you ever had that friend who goes on vacation for four days to London and comes back with a full-on Queen's English posh accent? "Oooh I left my brolly in the loo," they say, and you respond, "But you're from Colorado!" Well, there are reasons they (and many of us) do that, and usually it's on a pretty subconscious level.
It's called "accent mirroring," and it's actually quite common with people who are neurodivergent, particularly those with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). According Neurolaunch, the self-described "Free Mental Health Library," "Accent mirroring, also known as accent adaptation or phonetic convergence, is the tendency to unconsciously adopt the accent or speech patterns of those around us. This linguistic chameleon effect is not unique to individuals with ADHD, but it appears to be more pronounced and frequent in this population."
Essentially, when people have conversations, we're constantly "scanning" for informationānot just the words we're absorbing, but the inflection and tone. "When we hear an accent, our brains automatically analyze and categorize the phonetic features, prosody, and intonation patterns," writes Neurolaunch. For most, this does result in copying the accent of the person with whom we're speaking. But those with ADHD might be more sensitive to auditory cues. This, "coupled with a reduced ability to filter out or inhibit the impulse to mimicā¦could potentially explain the increased tendency for accent mirroring."
While the article explains further research is needed, they distinctly state that, "Accent mirroring in individuals with ADHD often manifests as an unconscious mimicry of accents in social situations. This can range from subtle shifts in pronunciation to more noticeable changes in intonation and speech rhythm. For example, a person with ADHD might find themselves unconsciously adopting a Southern drawl when conversing with someone from Texas, even if theyāve never lived in the South themselves."
People are having their say online. On the subreddit r/ADHDWomen, a thread began: "Taking on accents is an ADHD thing?" The OP shares, "My whole life, I've picked up accents. I, myself, never noticed, but everyone around me would be like, 'Why are you talking like that??' It could be after I watched a show or movie with an accent or after I've traveled somewhere with a different accent than my 'normal.'
They continue, "Apparently, I pick it up fast, but it fades out slowly. Today... I'm scrolling Instagram, I watch a reel from a comedian couple (Darcy and Jeremy. IYKYK) about how Darcy (ADHD) picks up accents everywhere they go. It's called ADHD Mirroring??? And it's another way of masking."
(The OP is referring to Darcy Michaels and his husband Jeremy Baer, who are both touring comedians based in Canada.)
Hundreds of people on the Reddit thread alone seem to relate. One comments, "Omfg I've done this my whole life; I'll even pick up on the pauses/spaces when I'm talking to someone who is ESLābut English is my first language lol."
Sometimes, it can be a real issue for those around the chameleon. "I accidentally mimicked a waitress's weird laugh one time. As soon as she was out of earshot, my family started to reprimand me, but I was already like 'oh my god I donāt know why I did that, I feel so bad.'"
Many commenters on TikTok were shocked to find out this can be a sign of ADHD. One jokes, "Omg, yes, at a store the cashier was talking to me and she was French. She's like 'Oh are you French too? No, I'm not lol. I'm very east coast Canada."
And some people just embrace it and make it work for them. "I mirror their words or phrase! Iām 30. I realized I start calling everyone sweetie cause my manager does & I work at coffee shop."