ART-PRESENTATION: Bridget Riley-Recent Paintings 2014-17

Bridget Riley is well-known since the mid-1960s for her distinctive, optically vibrant paintings, called “Op Art”. She characterised her work to the art critic David Sylvester in 1967 as “High-voltage”. Her work explores optical phenomena and juxtaposes color either by using a chromatic technique of identifiable hues or by selecting achromatic colors. In doing so, her work appears to flicker, pulsate and move, encouraging the viewer’s visual tension.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: David Zwirner Archive

Bridget Riley in her solo exhibition “Recent Paintings 2014-17” presents wall paintings and works on canvas as well as a group of studies that focus on two themes: works in black-and-white and the disc, that span the three floors of David Zwirner’s Gallery in London. On the ground floor are wall paintings and works on canvas in which the artist has returned to an achromatic palette for the first time since the 1960s. In particular, works such as “Quiver 3” (2014) take up the motif of the triangle, first explored in “Tremor“ (1962) which comprises tightly tessellated, irregular triangles that combine to create a subtle sense of undulation across the surface of a square canvas. The gallery’s first floor includes wall paintings and works on canvas featuring a recently inaugurated motif: discs. While new to Riley’s lexicon, these works have their basis in the artist’s “Deny” paintings from 1966, which feature gridded circular forms. Executed during a period when Riley was beginning to experiment with color, in particular incorporating gray tones into her compositions as a chromatic intermediary between black and white, these works are animated by the sum effect of the interaction of color and form. With the discs, which were first presented in the her 2017 solo exhibition at Christchurch Art Gallery, New Zealand, Riley has broken open the tightly constructed grids of the 1960s, creating even more complex and nuanced structures within which individual components interact, depending on the viewer’s position. Also on view in the Upper Room is a group of studies for this body of work. Throughout her career, Riley has extensively utilized smaller scale works as a means of arriving at her final compositions. Presented alongside larger works, these studies give crucial insight into the artist’s working method.

Info: David Zwirner Gallery, 24 Grafton Street, London, Duration: 19/1-10/3/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.davidzwirner.com