When it comes to truly beautiful art, the eyes have it — over and over again.

Canadian artist Alex Garant’s art series, Queen of Double Eyes, takes the viewer on a visual experience with brain-bending optical illusions.

At first glance, the brain may want to see Garant’s portraits as realistically stunning paintings of young women, but they quickly change into mind-altering visions that make you do a double take. Or at least make you want to rub your eyes a little.

« I wanted to play on the physical response…when your vision tries to adjust and adapt the image for full comprehension. I thought I could push the idea even further by playing with overlaying images, aiming to truly engage the viewer in the piece. Looking at one of those pieces should be more than just looking at something pretty, it should become an extra-sensorial experience, » Garant told Mashable.

Her technique starts as any other painter’s, she says, « It is way more boring than people may think. » Each portrait is drawn by hand in pencil, then drawn again to superimpose the image. Once she is done with the doubled-up portrait, she paints « alla prima » or wet-on-wet paint, to create the dreamy look of the final product.

« My paintings will go through a lot of ugly stages before I start becoming comfortable with a piece…everything just look like a big confusing mess during most of the process, » she said.

The double-vision effect of the women’s extra eyes, noses and mouths give each portrait an other worldly beauty, and Garant hopes that the slightly dizzying effect will only enhance the experience of viewing them. « Viewers should try to unearth the main figure by focusing on making those multiples into one. They are meant to engage the observers into an image investigation process and hopefully enlist their senses differently while doing so, » she said.

Garant says she especially enjoys interacting with other art lovers on social media. More of her work can be found on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and her official website.