Fragment 6
Fragment 6
Signed Print
Bridget Riley
Screenprint, 1965
Signed Print Edition of 75
H 63cm x W 72cm
Critical Review
Fragment 6 is the penultimate in a series of seven monochromatic prints, created by Bridget Riley in 1965. Fragment 6 depicts circles of varying size move in a seemingly random, yet ultimately precise, pattern across the page. Resembling a molecular configuration, the circles seem to flicker and pulsate, grasping the viewer’s visual tension.
Riley rose to prominence in the early 1960s with her bold vision for a new painterly language based upon repeated geometric forms: of which Fragment 6 is exemplar. Working at the time exclusively in black and white, it was only towards the late 1960s that Riley began to incorporate grey and, later still, primary colours into her work.
Having previously experimented with Pointillism, the technique of painting with coloured dots, Riley discovered her own, unique method of treating optics in paint by 1965. Following this, Riley continuously honed her personal artistic style, for which she would become an iconic, ground-breaking, British modern painter, influencing subsequent generations of artists.
