The bends …
Op art legend Bridget Riley’s breakthrough work from 1961 uses a staggeringly simple technique: lines of squares whose width contracts. Knowing how this trick is done, though, does not diminish its impact: a painting whose perfectly balanced building blocks seem to suddenly bend and vibrate. One early critic described the experience as “anxiety”.
Not just black and white …
Riley arrived at what would become her defining modus operandi in stages, and at a time of personal crisis with a relationship breakdown. She had tried a brushy, expressive black monochrome painting, but found it lifeless. Then, in 1961, came Kiss, two black forms that nearly touch against a white background. The opposing elements created tension and she continued to experiment with the most pared-down forms and palette.
Go with the flow …
For all the precision of her contrasting geometric shapes, Riley has written about how Movement in Squares was born partly from intuition. She drew experimentally and without pause, as something happened “on the paper that I had not anticipated”.
