Recruiting internationally known artists to exhibit their work can be a long, exhausting and often fruitless process.

Other times they just appear on your social media.

Medici Museum of Art Director Katelyn Amendolara-Russo recognized the name Alex Garant when she posted about seeing the Norman Rockwell collection there.

“Gosh, I’ve seen Alex’s work since I was a student in school,” Amendolara-Russo said of the Canadian-born artist. “She’s had shows internationally, from Paris to Australia, and she pioneered this type of portraiture.”

Amendolara-Russo reached out to Garant, wondering if she traveled from Canada to see the Rockwells and discovered Garant currently is living near her.

“We made that connection,” Amendolara-Russo said. “Our kids are the same age, so we connected that way. Then I asked her to have a show at the museum, and she made a lot of arrangements to make it happen because her work is in demand.”

“Alex Garant: Mirages,” which opens Friday at Medici, will feature more than 40 pieces. Some are large-scale paintings being exhibited publicly for the first time. Others are examples of her earlier work.

Garant is considered a trailblazer in contemporary figurative op art and has been called “Queen of Double Eyes” for her portraiture that features overlapping, multiple images of her subjects.

According to the bio on her website (alexgarant.com), her work has been shown throughout Canada and at such U.S. institutions as the Museum of Art and History in California, Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum in Arizona and Honolulu Museum of Art in Hawaii.

Her work has been featured in such publications as Hi-Fructose, Juxtapoz and Beautiful Bizarre, and she’s been commissioned to create works for the band Billy Talent and Marvel/Sideshow Collectibles.

“Any art magazine looking at contemporary artists, she’s definitely there,” Amendolara-Russo said. She is a pioneer as a woman artist and in op art.”

Garant’s exhibition coincides with “Sci-Fi + Hollywood: The Art of John Zabrucky” at Medici

“She’s worked with Marvel and different films, so I think that lended itself to a nice relationship between John’s Modern Props exhibit and hers, so we synced them at the same time to make it work.”