Bridget Riley
Riley studied art at Goldsmiths College (1949–52) and graduated with a BA from The Royal College of Art (1952–55). She worked at J. Walter Thompson advertising agency as an illustrator, working part-time until 1962.
In the winter of 1958 she saw an exhibition of Jackson Pollock which was to have a major impact on her. Her early work was figurative with a semi-impressionist style. Between 1958 and 1959 her work at the advertising agency showed her adoption of a style of painting based on the pointillist technique (a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image).
Around 1960 she began to develop her signature Op Art style consisting of black and white geometric patterns that explore the dynamism of sight and produce a disorienting effect on the eye.
- "At the End of my Pencil"
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Bridget Riley speaks about her work
transcription:
"rhythm and repetition are at the root of movement. they create a situation within which the most simple basic forms become visually active. by massing them and repeating them they become more fully present. reputation acts as a sort of amplifier for visual events which seen singularly would hardly be visible. but to make these basic forms release the full visual energy within them, they have to breathe, as it were, to open and close, or to tighten up and relax. a rhythm that is alive has to do with changing pace and feeling how the visual speed can expand and contract, sometimes go slower and sometimes go faster. the whole thing must live."
