Timothy Taylor Gallery

Bridget Riley is one of Britain’s best-known artists whose career has spanned over 50 years. She first received acclaim for her work in the early 1960s with black and white paintings that explored the dynamic effects of optical phenomena. In 1967 Riley began experimenting with colour, and since then her practice has examined the perception of nature by means of colour and forms. Riley has stated, ‘the eye can travel over the surface in a way parallel to the way it moves over nature. It should feel caressed and soothed, experience frictions and ruptures, glide and drift…One moment there will be nothing to look at and the next second the canvas seems to refill, to be crowded with visual events.’ Riley is noted for constructing a plastic pictorial space between the canvas and the viewer, creating spatial relationships using a distinctive palette and a vocabulary of shapes that is continually evolving.

Riley was born in London in 1931 and spent most of her childhood in Cornwall. She studied at Goldsmiths College, 1949 – 1952 and the Royal College of Art, 1952 – 1955. In 1969 she was the first woman to win the International Prize for Painting whilst representing Britain at the 34th Venice Biennale. She holds honorary doctorates from institutions such as Oxford University, 1994, and Cambridge University, 1995. Riley was made a CBE in 1974 and in 1999 was awarded the Companion of Honour. In 2009, Riley was awarded the prestigious Kaiser Ring of the City of Goslar, Germany, one of the world’s most prestigious art prizes. Major exhibitions have included the Hayward Gallery, 1970 and 1992/94; a British Council touring retrospective in the USA, Australia and Japan, 1979; and retrospective exhibitions at Tate Britain, 2003; Museum of Modern Art in Sydney, Australia, 2005; City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand, 2005; and Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 2008. Riley lives and works in London, Cornwall and France.

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