British-born artist Bridget Riley was perhaps the most famous artist who shaped Op Art after Victor Vasarely. Vasarely has been called the "Grandfather of Op-Art" and Riley has been called the "Mother of Op Art".
In the 1880s, Georges Seurat was influenced by the color theory of the French chemist Michel-Eugene Chevreul and attempted to produce a “mixing” in eye perception by combining unmixed colors to explore this meticulous approach to optics. Bridget Riley was influenced by her experiments of Seurat, especially the "heat wave" vibrations, and began to produce works that characterized her style.
In 1959, she painted a copy of Georges Seurat's "The Bridge at Courbevoie" and developed a new perspective on color and tone. This experience led her to produce her first important works in the field of pure abstraction in the early 1960s, using geometric patterns designed to create optical illusions.
Bridget Louise Riley (born 24 April 1931) is an English painter known for her op art paintings. She lives and works in London, Cornwall and the Vaucluse in France. Riley was born on 24 April 1931 in Norwood, London. Her father, John Fisher Riley, originally from Yorkshire, had been an Army officer. He was a printer by trade and owned his own business. In 1938, he relocated the printing business, together with his family, to Lincolnshire.
In October 1964, Time Magazine first used the term "Op Art" in response to the work of artists such as Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley. The term referenced that Op Art consists of illusion and often appears to the human eye to be moving or breathing due to its mathematically based composition.
Born in South London in 1931, the artist spent her childhood and youth under the influence of World War II. The artist, whose interest in painting was noted at an early age, especially loved working on patterns in wavy forms.
Riley, whose works attracted the attention of her art teacher during high school, studied at Goldsmith College and the Royal College of Art in London. The artist, who left school to care for her dying father, became depressed after her father's death and worked in the art department of the advertising agency for a long time. The artist, who decided to take a break from her commercial life and return to her artistic life, went to Italy for education. She was very impressed by the Renaissance frescoes and started to paint her first optical paintings under the influence of a seminar she attended at Hornsey College in London in 1960. Thus began the artist's black-and-white monochrome period, which lasted until 1966.
The artist, who exhibited her optical works in her first solo exhibition at London Gallery One in 1962, participated in the "Responsive Eye" exhibition at MOMA in 1965, her work was used as the poster of the exhibition, and the direction of the artist's life literally changed.
After her exhibition at MOMA in 1965, Riley's works began to attract reaction. While pop art was based on American commercial values, Riley rejected commercial work, opposed American culture, and did not hesitate to express this at every opportunity. Despite all these objections, their patterns are included in consumer goods by American manufacturers. Magazines such as Vogue and The Times featured pictures of the artist standing in front of her works like a model on their covers.
His first 3D work, "Continuum" in 1963, makes the audience actively participate in the work, and for the work to exist, the viewer must physically pass through the work. At the time, Daily Mail commented that "the work gives viewers a feeling close to seasickness, and at the same time, it is a hallucinatory experience that gives the feeling of imprisonment when entering the work."
The colorful period of the artist's art began after her trip to Egypt in 1981. She discovered that Egyptian art was limited to 5 basic colors in the temple paintings around the Nile River and that they were applied to all works of art. In light of this influence, she tended to use simpler forms and new colors. The colorful vertical striped forms that the artist used in her works turned into horizontal, diagonal, and intersecting lines in later periods.
The light and colors of the rural life she lived in Cornwell during her childhood affected her so deeply that we can see traces of this in her later works. The artist, who continues her work in her workshops in 3 different cities, Cornwell, London, and Vaklus Valley, moved away from standardized colors and shapes after the 1980s and turned to rhythmic, lively patterns reminiscent of Matisse's works in terms of color.