I spent the early part of this evening watching a film about the life and work of Bridget Riley. Although I have seen a fair bit of her art over the years I have never before gained any coherent sense of her life and the way she looks at and experiences art. It was a thoroughly interesting experience, aided a good deal by the ability of Kirstie Wsrk, the interviewer.
I have to admit that it took me a fair bit of time to overcome a sense of mystification. I was really not entirely sure what Riley was setting out to do. Things became clearer after I had worked my way past what I came to realise was a set of superficial preconceptions I had built up over the years which amounted, on reflection, to be other people’s ideas about her work rather than Riley’s own intentions. A large part of my puzzlement turned out, however, to be rooted in the huge difference between her approach to art and my own. We are, indeed, occupied with projects which are very different, and it is interesting that they can both find a shelter under the umbrella label of “art”.
I’m sure that this is a heavy oversimplification, but I think I would summarise Bridget Riley’s work in terms of her attempt to give form and substance to her own visual perceptions of the world. Reflecting on the film afterwards I realised quite suddenly that what I am trying to do, as often as not, is to find some kind of visual metaphor for aspects of experience which are not primarily visual. These tasks are very different from each other.
I guess that if you take the time to browse through the “galleries” elsewhere in this web-site you will find a clearer appreciation of what I mean than would be the case if I try to spell that out here.