Artist Creates Special Contact Lenses for Brands & Films

By Danial Martinus • 30 Jun 2026 in Art

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If there’s one physical aspect that we tend to take for granted in our favourite advertisements or Hollywood blockbusters, it’s the eyes that people have on their faces.

Literal eyes, of course. It’s a craft that delicately straddles the line between tasteful artistic detail and meaningless distraction. But artist Jessica A. Nelson, known online as @veiled_optics, seems to have mastered that art.

It’s all in the eyes

Having worked with various brands, as well as major Hollywood films, Nelson is no stranger to turning eyes into art.

It’s a rare sight, considering the heavy use of CGI and other forms of digital manipulation in Hollywood. But it’s definitely something that we appreciate, knowing these minute details are all real, physical things we can touch (though we probably wouldn’t touch them without sanitised hands, of course).

Judging from what she’s shared on social media, Nelson has worked on some of the biggest brand campaigns and films in the industry, some of which you might already be familiar with. Take, for instance, this set of contacts she made for Givenchy:

From afar, they might just look like regular contact lenses until you take a closer look and realise they’re square shaped and completely blacked out.

It’s a bizarre, out-of-this-world look that doesn’t exactly scream alien-invader; more like sophisticated and highly intelligent human from the year 3050. This writer can’t explain why it looks and feels like that, but it just does.

Another great example of Nelson’s artistic range comes in the form of a contact lens that makes Sean Penn’s character in One Battle After Another look extremely scarred and battle-hardened. It doesn’t necessarily have any particular details that stand out, but perhaps that’s the point:

The eye looks clouded, worn with age and pain, kind of like fish eyes at the market. As grotesque as that comparison is, it makes complete sense in this setting. The film is rather gritty by nature, with Penn’s role as Lockjaw an even more unsettling presence.

Moving onto more aesthetically palatable looks, Nelson has also worked with Jeremy Allen White, who portrays Bruce Springsteen in the musician’s biopic, Deliver Me From Nowhere. But take a look below. Do you even notice what Nelson has done?

At first glance, it’s hard to tell. But if you’re familiar with the star of The Bear, you’ll know he’s famous for his baby blue eyes, something Springsteen doesn’t have.

Springsteen’s eyes have been described as a “honey-olive” shade of dark brown, so there’s definitely a lot of nuance that Nelson had to keep in mind when designing the contacts for White.

But enough from this writer, you probably just want to gawk at Nelson’s other creations. Check them out below: