Page 22 - Studio International - July 1966
P. 22

Bridget Riley : drawing for painting



                              by Gene Baro

                              Bridget Riley's paintings are visual events. They are not   Her austere means and her method that seems to rely
                              images; they are not symbols; they are actions; and the  upon mechanical measure prove unconfining after all.
                              artistic intention is that they offer a visual equivalent to  Her paintings, far from being remote and impersonal
                              psycho-physical states. The ideal response to these  abstractions, have emotional weight; they express  her
                              paintings would perhaps be unconscious—a sense of  and engage us. Within the context of a unified technical
                              inexplicable identification with their inner dynamics.   attack, they register a great variety of moods. Indivi-
                               To a large degree, this is an art of autonomous visual  dually, they are intellectually subtle, tenderly lyrical,
                              orders, co-operating in opposition or uneasily balanced  grandly dramatic, intense and violent—but they come
                              in antagonism, an art of disturbed yet dominating pat-  out of the same sort of discreet formulation. They share
                              terns. The optical effect we sometimes experience in this  in an uncompromising and uncompromised attitude
                              work is a by-product of contending systems of progres-  towards art. Their unified technique is nothing less than
                              sion, periodicity, and variation, or of the arbitrary  a way of seeing.
                              schematizing of one system of energy in terms of an-  The impact of these paintings is immediate and com-
                              other—for instance, the expression of a circle as an en-  prehensive. They provoke not a response but a reaction,
                              larging series of acute angles.                    a sharp, involuntary involvement that is bodily rather
                               Miss Riley confines herself to a fundamental vocabu-  than intellectual. Later, perhaps ultimately, we become
                              lary — to standard shapes, black and white, geometric  concerned with their means. We want to know how these
                              motifs, simple bands, a range of tones from cold to warm.  paintings are made—how they are made imaginatively.
                              Her paintings are a demonstration of qualified structure,  As statements, they have the force of perfect aptness.
                              of structure as process. The element conspicuously absent  Their technical economy and visual integration almost
                              from her work is, of course, colour; but her neglect of it is  persuades us that they came into being spontaneously.
                              not an evasion. Colour is either the whole building   Reflection corrects this impression. We realize that the
                              principle in painting or it is a modifier of form otherwise  paintings are a culmination. They are the products of
                              arrived at. For the moment, both functions are irrele-  profound forethought, experimentation, and rigorous
                              vant to her conceptions. She works by another building  self-criticism.
                              code, one that does not allow decoration to pass for   In fact, Bridget Riley's paintings originate in her
                              structure.                                         drawings and are wholly dependent upon them. The

      Study for shift 1963
      Ink and pencil
      15+ x 22 in.
      Robert Fraser Gallery
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