Bridget Riley
Bridget Riley
Bridget Louise Riley CH CBEis an English painter who is one of the foremost exponents of Op art. She currently lives and works in London, Cornwall and the Vaucluse in France...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth24 April 1931
artist patterns way
As the artist picks his way along, rejecting and accepting as he goes, certain patterns of enquiry emerge.
color identity roles
For me nature is not landscape, but the dynamism of visual forces, an event rather than an appearance. These forces can only be tackled by treating color and form as ultimate identities, freeing them from all descriptive or functional roles.
exercise two mind
I work on two levels. I occupy my conscious mind with things to do, lines to draw, movements to organize, rhythms to invent. In fact, I keep myself occupied. But that allows other things to happen which I'm not controlling... the more I exercise my conscious mind, the more open the other things may find that they can come through.
games play space
If you can allow colour to breathe, to occupy its own space, to play its own game in its unstable way, it's wanton behaviour, so to speak. It is promiscuous like nothing.
mind way use
I never make studies from nature. They would get in the way. I make use of my mind.
landscape force visuals
For me nature is not landscape, but the dynamism of visual forces.
light blue play
I learned from Seurat this important thing about colour and light, that 'a light' can be built from colour. I learned a great deal about interaction, that 'a blue' in different parts will play all sorts of different roles.
aquariums play doe
As a painter today you have to work without that essential platform. But if one does not deceive oneself and accepts this lack of certainty, other things may come into play.
artist personality decision
It seems the deeper, truer personality of the artist only emerges in the making of decisions... in refusing and accepting, changing and revising.
opening-up space littles
In my earlier paintings, I wanted the space between the picture plane and the spectator to be active. It was in that space, paradoxically, the painting 'took place.' Then, little by little, and to some extent deliberately, I made it go the other way, opening up an interior space... so that there was a layered, shallow depth.
used tension sensations
I used to build up to sensation, accumulating tension until it released a perceptual experience
focus attention veils
Painters have always needed a sort of veil upon which they can focus their attention. It's as though the more fully the consciousness is absorbed, the greater the freedom of the spirit behind
moving eye mind
It is important that the painting can be inhabited, so that the mind's eye, or the eye's mind, can move about it credibly.
time
His failures are as valuable as his successes: by misjudging one thing he conforms something else, even if at the time he does not know what that something else is.