Earth Art is a two-stage lenticular¹ print that “flips” between the words ART and EARTH in relation to the horizontal viewing angle. The work celebrates and elevates the quirky appearance of the word “ART” between the E and the H in “EARTH.” This work builds on my research into large-scale lenticular printing, which first began in 2024. A portion of this initial research was published² in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Signage and Wayfinding in 2025.

Earth Art uses tightly kerned uppercase letters set in the 20th-century sans-serif typeface Compacta, which I first used as Letraset peel-and-stick letters in the 1990s. I frequently use this typeface in my graphic, motion, and poster design work. Earth Art is inspired and informed by contemporary word art³ artists including Kay Rosen, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, Ed Ruscha, and Lawrence Weiner. The title is also a playful nod to land [earth] art—sometimes referred to as environmental art.⁴ Like Ruscha,⁵ I originally studied graphic design and again like Ruscha, my of my early layout work and art direction was for advertising and art catalogs. Interestingly, between 1965 and 1967, Ruscha even designed the pages for the art journal Artforum.⁶

Among these wordart or wordplay artists, Kay Rosen’s work most directly informs Earth Art. It is no surprise that Rosen originally studied linguistics and that her work draws upon typography and graphic design. In the catalogue for her 2017 exhibition “Kay Rosen: H Is for House” at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Richard Klein notes that “Rosen’s text-based work can be found in the world of graphic design, and particularly the influence of the Bauhaus on type and typography.”⁷ Klein further states that, “The bold use of letterforms and color by Bauhaus-influenced designers has informed much of visual culture….”⁸ In the catalogue for Rosen’s 2024 exhibition at the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art in Bremen, Germany, Janneke de Vries states something that I have long believed: great works of art sometimes have the ability to linger in the mind for many years after encountering them. Along these lines, in reference to Rosen’s Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing (1994) de Vries states, “There are some works of art that stay with you for an entire lifetime—quiet and private, powerful and inspiring.”⁹

The orange-red in the background of Earth Art is perhaps best described as vermilion.¹⁰ For many years, I have used a specific CMYK formula for this color. I have used the color so often that my clients and colleagues have jokingly named it “Vlahos vermilion.”

Credits and Specifications

• Lenticular Production: Parallax Printing, USA
• Edition of 5
• Framed Size: 48 x 36 in.

Footnotes

1. See: “Lenticular printing.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Sep 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenticular_printing. ↩︎
2. Vlahos, Dan. “Exploring the Affects and Effects of a Trompe-l’œil Lenticular Portal to Nature.” Interdisciplinary Journal of Signage and Wayfinding, vol. 9, no. 1, 2025, pp. 49–56, https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2470-9670.2025.v9.i1.a166. ↩︎
3. See: “Word art.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Dec 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_art. ↩︎
4. See: “Land art.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Jul 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_art. ↩︎
5. “Ed Ruscha.” Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/ed-ruscha. Accessed 6 Sept. 2026. ↩︎
6. “Edward Ruscha.” National Gallery of Australia, nga.gov.au/art-artists/the-kenneth-e-tyler-collection/artists/edward-ruscha/. Accessed 6 Sept. 2026. ↩︎
7. Rosen, Kay. Kay Rosen: H Is for House. Essay by Richard Klein, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 2017. ↩︎
8. Ibid. ↩︎
9. Rosen, Kay. Kay Rosen: Now and Then. Edited by Ingo Clauß and Janneke de Vries, DCV, 2023. ↩︎
10. See: “Vermilion.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 Sep 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermilion. ↩︎

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