Through three key subjects; the moon, train tracks, and stairs, Johns explores optical illusions, and the body’s natural inclination to make sense of them. Johns states, “Our bodies have evolved to work with the specific environment of Earth. The ability to see depth of space in a flat drawing is evidence that our eyes so badly want to see gravity, volume and distance at work that they can be tricked by a simple optical illusion.”

Right Side Up is a montage of 16 works, each 12 x 12 inches. Using an image of the back of the moon taken by NASA and pairing it with an early image of a modal staircase given to MC Escher, Johns illuminates how significant orientation is to interpretation.

Earth in Darkness, Earth in Light and Yellow Moon, Grey Moon deal with the effect that context places in mediating our understanding of what we are seeing. Taking from Joseph Albers’ theories from his book The Interaction of Colour, the images of the earth and moon are placed on different colours.