Bridget Louise Riley is a British artist and one of the foremost exponents of Op Art.
Bridget Riley began her artistic training in the 1950s where she attended Goldsmiths College of Art and then the Royal College of Art in London. After leaving art school Riley worked as an art teacher. It was during this time that Riley began exploring the interplay of shape, line and light to create, what would become her trademark, black and white paintings. These Op Art images presented a variety of geometric forms that produced sensations of movement and colour.
In 1965, Riley exhibited a series of her Op Art paintings alongside Victor Vasarely at an exhibition called The Responsive Eye at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her image was featured on the front of the exhibition catalogue and immediately caught the attention of the media. The Op Art graphics were dynamic, capturing the public’s imagination and inspiring the fashion, design and advertising industries – her artwork even being worn by Keith Moon, the drummer of The Who. Riley soon became Britain’s number one art celebrity.
Having defined a generation with her paintings and limited edition prints, Riley is still one of Britain’s most revered artists. She has been commissioned to create murals for many notable institutes including a permanent 56 meter long mural for St Mary’s Hospital London. The mural was placed on the 10th floor of the hospital’s Queen Elizabeth Mother Wing, adjoining two other murals completed by Riley 20 years previously.
