Bridget Riley

This painting is characteristic of Bridget Riley’s exploration of how color and simple geometric forms combine to create particular optical effects. The measured variation of blue, ochre, orange, teal, brown, and white stripes suggests a pattern that never seems to materialize, prompting us to appreciate the harmony of the colors while we try to determine the system that brings them together.

Riley is strongly identified with 1960s Op Art, which explored the ability of abstract painting and sculpture to affect the viewer visually and psychologically. In Gather and her subsequent works, Riley uses pattern and color in a more nuanced way than the more dazzling, effects-driven work associated with the Op Art movement.