Patchwork & Quilting UK – July 2019

FEATURE // making ripples, making waves

30 British Patchwork & Quilting JULY 2019

What strikes you most when you meet the artist Bridget Riley CBE, is her cheery enthusiasm and

her straightforward lack of pretension. With a sparkle in the eye, she tells Michael Bracewell in

2010 how she went to New York in 1965 and there met Pop artists Warhol and Lichtenstein: all

Warhol did was stare at her, she says, while Lichtenstein invited her out skating.

Making Ripples, Making Waves

The Art of Bridget Riley

BY DEBORAH NASH

This was a time of optimism and surging energy following

years of post-war austerity, so Riley found Warhol’s nihilism

unappealing, although she went on to adopt his practice

of employing assistants to help execute her work, as well

as sharing an enduring interest in the repetition of motifs.

‘Repetition acts as a sort of amplifi er for visual events, which

seen singly would hardly be visible,’ she has said.

In February 2008, Riley’s painting ‘Static 2’ sold for £1,476,500

at Christie's and today, at 88, she stands in the National

Gallery’s Annenberg Court in London to launch her most recent

composition ‘Messengers’. She has plenty to be cheerful about.

‘Messengers’ is a criss-cross of spots painted in diagonal lines

on the 10 x 20 metres white wall of the National Gallery.

Placed near the entrance to the building, the director Gabriele

Finaldi says the mural gives visitors ‘... a purifying baptism...’

as they make their way from the outside into the gallery

rooms. ‘Messengers’ is a nod to the painter Constable who

‘Messengers’ with Bridget

Riley and National Gallery

Director Gabriele Finaldi.

© 2019 Bridget Riley. All

rights reserved/Photo: The

National Gallery, London

Reflection of ‘Messengers’ in the black marble of the National Gallery