Mr. Rostovsky's medium-large paintings of expansive ocean surfaces interrupted by small heads of swimmers cleverly toy with relations between illusory depth and painterly flatness.

Surface vies with illusory depth, order struggles against chaos.

Gauhm's broad hips and narrow shoulders were inverted and vaguely duplicated by the reflection that descended into the illusory depths of the tabletop.

As with a Jasper Johns "Flag," the window neatly fits the actual canvas rectangle, putting into play the old modernist flip-flop between material surface and illusory depth.

The effect not only cannily exaggerates the picture's illusory depth of field, but also sets up a psychologically evocative confrontation between modern woman and timeless old masters.

Mr. Campanelli creates a nice dialogue between real depth and illusory depth, between painted shadows and the shadows cast by the pieces of wood.

Through the glasses, the process gives the television picture the illusory depth of a 3-D postcard, with various flat planes extending the view inward; without them, the picture remains legible.

The pictures flip back and forth between literal, tautly composed flatness and illusory depth.

Derived from photographs, these, too, are made with unassumingly capable craft, and they toy cleverly with the tension between illusory depth and painterly flatness.

The wall projections are like big, flat field paintings, the boxy monitors containers of illusory depth.