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Lot Essay
‘The sensations [the curve paintings] generate belong to all of us; those sensations of shine and shimmer are amongst our most common visual experiences. By recognising that what I had brought about in a purely abstract context was something that, in ordinary life, we share, though mostly unconsciously, it therefore became valid.’ BRIDGET RILEY
A rippling, shimmering, curvilinear gauze of aquatic blues and sun-kissed orange, Bridget Riley’s Painting with Two Verticals 3 is an outstanding example of her recent work. From 1997, Riley departed from her previous perceptual explorations in dizzying optic networks and stripy chromatic dissonances, in favour of composing an extended series of curves. Based on a sixth of a circle, these snaking, sensual forms are worked into a stringent system of diagonal rasters, undulating in flat, abstract space, blurring perceptual boundaries between figure and ground, interlocking shapes, and colour variations. As a result of this spatial complexity, the perpendicular lines in Painting with Two Verticals 3 are disguised behind a rhythmic interweavement of curvilinear geometries, whilst diagonally aligned lozenges are disturbed by overlapping, alternately coloured counterparts in a tapestry of convoluted component relationships.
Riley designs her compositions in accordance with rigorous preplanning. The process, which often takes breathtakingly unexpected turns, has been compared to Matisse’s late cut-outs. Like Matisse’s large-scale paper works, Riley’s process involves creating preliminary cut-out models of the final painted composition, allowing her to experiment with emphatic axes, chromatic schemes and formal undulation. In addition, Riley responds to the rhythmical movement of Matisse’s curved figures with her own curvilinear characters. Writing on Matisse’s La Danse (1909-10), Riley noted that ‘arms and legs, whole bodies even, are lengthened and shortened as the development of the rhythm...The group, subject to the overall organization of colour and rhythm and entranced by the act of dancing, lose their separate identities and become one pictorial form, one organic unit...’ (B. Riley, quoted in Bridget Riley Paintings and Drawings 1961-2004, exh. cat. Sydney, 2004, p. 109). Similarly, with Riley’s mingling patterns in Painting with Two Verticals 3, the whole composition seems to dance and morph in an intertwined totality.
Whilst the viewer is invited to reflect upon the abstract nature of the piece as a perceptual game, deciphering the foregrounded dissections of curves at unexpected angles and chromatic pitches, Riley has also focused her work on a potential to evoke subjective emotional reminiscences from the depths of its structure. In conversation with Lynne Cook, Riley explained that ‘the sensations [the curve paintings] generate belong to all of us; those sensations of shine and shimmer are amongst our most common visual experiences. By recognising that what I had brought about in a purely abstract context was something that, in ordinary life, we share, though mostly unconsciously, it therefore became valid’ (B. Riley, quoted in ‘Bridget Riley in Conversation with Lynne Cooke’, Bridget Riley, exh. cat., Musée d’Art moderne la Ville de Paris, Paris, 2008, p. 147). With its turquoise and deep sea-blue resonating with the brighter colours of the orange and beige, Painting with Two Verticals 3 conjures images of beached paradises, or else the glowing warmth of a summer afternoon. In stirring figurative recollections and expressive responses, Riley creates works that long for endless contemplation, reflection and interpretation, forming immersive worlds out of mystifying abstraction.
A rippling, shimmering, curvilinear gauze of aquatic blues and sun-kissed orange, Bridget Riley’s Painting with Two Verticals 3 is an outstanding example of her recent work. From 1997, Riley departed from her previous perceptual explorations in dizzying optic networks and stripy chromatic dissonances, in favour of composing an extended series of curves. Based on a sixth of a circle, these snaking, sensual forms are worked into a stringent system of diagonal rasters, undulating in flat, abstract space, blurring perceptual boundaries between figure and ground, interlocking shapes, and colour variations. As a result of this spatial complexity, the perpendicular lines in Painting with Two Verticals 3 are disguised behind a rhythmic interweavement of curvilinear geometries, whilst diagonally aligned lozenges are disturbed by overlapping, alternately coloured counterparts in a tapestry of convoluted component relationships.
Riley designs her compositions in accordance with rigorous preplanning. The process, which often takes breathtakingly unexpected turns, has been compared to Matisse’s late cut-outs. Like Matisse’s large-scale paper works, Riley’s process involves creating preliminary cut-out models of the final painted composition, allowing her to experiment with emphatic axes, chromatic schemes and formal undulation. In addition, Riley responds to the rhythmical movement of Matisse’s curved figures with her own curvilinear characters. Writing on Matisse’s La Danse (1909-10), Riley noted that ‘arms and legs, whole bodies even, are lengthened and shortened as the development of the rhythm...The group, subject to the overall organization of colour and rhythm and entranced by the act of dancing, lose their separate identities and become one pictorial form, one organic unit...’ (B. Riley, quoted in Bridget Riley Paintings and Drawings 1961-2004, exh. cat. Sydney, 2004, p. 109). Similarly, with Riley’s mingling patterns in Painting with Two Verticals 3, the whole composition seems to dance and morph in an intertwined totality.
Whilst the viewer is invited to reflect upon the abstract nature of the piece as a perceptual game, deciphering the foregrounded dissections of curves at unexpected angles and chromatic pitches, Riley has also focused her work on a potential to evoke subjective emotional reminiscences from the depths of its structure. In conversation with Lynne Cook, Riley explained that ‘the sensations [the curve paintings] generate belong to all of us; those sensations of shine and shimmer are amongst our most common visual experiences. By recognising that what I had brought about in a purely abstract context was something that, in ordinary life, we share, though mostly unconsciously, it therefore became valid’ (B. Riley, quoted in ‘Bridget Riley in Conversation with Lynne Cooke’, Bridget Riley, exh. cat., Musée d’Art moderne la Ville de Paris, Paris, 2008, p. 147). With its turquoise and deep sea-blue resonating with the brighter colours of the orange and beige, Painting with Two Verticals 3 conjures images of beached paradises, or else the glowing warmth of a summer afternoon. In stirring figurative recollections and expressive responses, Riley creates works that long for endless contemplation, reflection and interpretation, forming immersive worlds out of mystifying abstraction.