Riley

Bridget Riley uses repetition within her paintings. Riley's painting 'Fall' 1963 is a good example to show how she uses repetition. Riley has repeated a single curling line and when you look at the painting it seems like it is moving but it isn't. When I look at this painting it reminds me a lot of process art and repeating the same process in like an obsession. The painting is on canvas with one line repeated across in the colours black and white. The line starts of with a big wave and then seems to get more squashed at the bottom the painting and the more you look at the bottom of the painting the more you see the painting move.

          I try to organise a field of visual energy which accumulates until it reaches maximum tension' Bridget Riley.

This quote explains what she wants to achieve in her work and what impact she wants to give the audience. In 'Fall' 1963 a single perpendicular curve is repeated to create a field of varying optical frequencies. Though in the upper part a gentle relaxed swing prevails, the curve is rapidly compressed towards the bottom of the painting. The composition verges on the edge of disintegration without the structure ever breaking. Riley began her first Op Art paintings, working only in black and white and using simple geometric shapes- squares, lines and ovals. Although she investigated many areas of perception, her work, with its emphasis on optical effects was never intended to be an end in it self. It was instinctive, not based on theory but guided by what she saw with her own eyes.

From 1961 to 1964 Bridget Riley worked with thecontrast of black and white, occasionally introducing tonal scales of grey. During the 1960's a powerful print came on the scene. These prints might have influenced Bridget Riley's work with all the shapes. With this idea of lines and repeating pattern David Connearn's work  links to Riley's with his huge line paintings and drawings and the idea of process art like Eva Hesse's practice of accumulation in pieces of work such as 'addendum.



Fall
Bridget Riley
1963


http://www.op-art.co.uk/bridget-riley/

This website has information about Bridget Riley threw the years and explains her choice of colours used in her drawings and paintings.