Op Art
...t creates a sort of visual tension, in the viewer’s mind, that gives works the illusion of movement. Second it non-representational because of its geometrically-based nature. Third, the elements employed are carefully chosen to achieve maximum effect. Fourthly, the critical techniques used in Op Art are perspective and careful location of color. Finally, positive and negative spaces in a composition are of equal importance because Op Art could not be created without both. Bridget Riley is perhaps the best known of the op artists. Since the mid-1960s she has been praised for her optically vibrant paintings. Her paintings exist on their own terms. Her subject matter is restricted to simple colors and abstract shapes. These form her starting point and from them she develops formal progressions, color relationships, and repetitive structures. The effect is to generate sensations of movement, light, and space. Though her work is abstract, such experiences seem surprisingly familiar. During her childhood, when she lived in Cornwall, she formed an acute responsiveness to natural phenomena. In particular, the effects of light and color in the landscape made a deep impression. Though her mature work does not proceed from observation, it is nevertheless connected with the experience of nature. Of her paintings, she has commented: ‘the eye can travel over the surface in a way parallel to the way it moves over nature. It should feel caressed and soothed, experience frictions and ruptures, glide and drift…One moment there will be nothing to look at and the next second the canvas seems to refill, to be crowded with visual events.’ This parallel relation between Riley’s art and nature has underpinned the development of her work, coloring the way it forms both an exploration and a celebration of a fundamental human experience: sight. Riley’s work falls into phases or groups in which it is possible to see certain formal ideas being worked through. At the same time, however, her work has not followed a single, straightforward line of development. Rather, its course resembles a kind of musical progression in which different themes are stated, explored, combined with other ideas, and progressively transformed. The exhibition is therefore arranged in a broadly chronological order, and according to phases or families of related paintings. Within these groups internal connections can be discovered and ideas stated earlier can be seen reappearing in later works. After studying at Goldsmith’s College of Art and the Royal College of Art, Bridget Riley had her first solo exhibition at London’s Gallery One in 1962. She adopted her Op Art style in the 1960’s under the influence of the Futurists, primarily Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni. Her first paintings were executed in black and white and use geometric patterns to create the illusion of movement. She later incorporated color in order to add d...