Artist Quotes by Bridget Riley

15 Artist quotes by Bridget Riley

Here you’ll find Riley’s take on what it means to be an artist, a concise set of statements that capture her visual pulse. The collection is brief but each line offers a clear glimpse into her perspective on creativity.

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As a painter today you have to work without that essential platform. But if one does not deceive oneself and accepts this…

Bridget Riley

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As the artist picks his way along, rejecting and accepting as he goes, certain patterns of enquiry emerge.

Bridget Riley

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Painting is a science pursued as an enquiry into the laws of nature...Observation is considered the key to natural science.

Bridget Riley

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An artist's failures are as valuable as his successes: by misjudging one thing he conforms something else, even if at the time…

Bridget Riley

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Painting is, I think, inevitably an archaic activity and one that depends on spiritual values.

Bridget Riley

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It seems the deeper, truer personality of the artist only emerges in the making of decisions... in refusing and accepting, changing and…

Bridget Riley

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In general, my paintings are multifocal. You can't call it unfocused space, but not being fixed to a single focus is very…

Bridget Riley

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An artist's early work is inevitably made up of a mixture of tendencies and interests, some of which are compatible and some…

Bridget Riley

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The eye can travel over the surface in a way parallel to the way it moves over nature. It should feel caressed…

Bridget Riley

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Painters have always needed a sort of veil upon which they can focus their attention. It's as though the more fully the…

Bridget Riley

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It was only after I had been out of the art school that I actually copied a small Seurat, and I copied…

Bridget Riley

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In my earlier paintings, I wanted the space between the picture plane and the spectator to be active. It was in that…

Bridget Riley

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I couldn’t get near what I wanted through seeing, recognizing and recreating, so I stood the problem on its head. I started…

Bridget Riley

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It is important that the painting can be inhabited, so that the mind's eye, or the eye's mind, can move about it…

Bridget Riley

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In my earlier paintings, I wanted the space between the picture plane and the spectator to be active.

Bridget Riley

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More by Bridget Riley

It is important that the painting can be inhabited, so that the mind's eye, or the eye's mind, can move about it credibly.

Bridget Riley

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I work with nature, although in completely new terms.

Bridget Riley

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It was only after I had been out of the art school that I actually copied a small Seurat, and I copied it in…

Bridget Riley

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Painters have always needed a sort of veil upon which they can focus their attention. It's as though the more fully the consciousness is…

Bridget Riley

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An artist's early work is inevitably made up of a mixture of tendencies and interests, some of which are compatible and some of which…

Bridget Riley

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If you can allow colour to breathe, to occupy its own space, to play its own game in its unstable way, it's wanton behaviour,…

Bridget Riley

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The word 'paradox' has always had a kind of magic for me, and I think my pictures have a paradoxical quality, a paradox of…

Bridget Riley

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An artist's failures are as valuable as his successes: by misjudging one thing he conforms something else, even if at the time he does…

Bridget Riley

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His failures are as valuable as his successes: by misjudging one thing he conforms something else, even if at the time he does not…

Bridget Riley

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The actual basis of colour is instability. Once you accept that in lieu of something which is stable, which is form, you are dealing…

Bridget Riley

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In my earlier paintings, I wanted the space between the picture plane and the spectator to be active. It was in that space, paradoxically,…

Bridget Riley

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I work on two levels. I occupy my conscious mind with things to do, lines to draw, movements to organize, rhythms to invent. In…

Bridget Riley

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Painting is, I think, inevitably an archaic activity and one that depends on spiritual values.

Bridget Riley

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I never make studies from nature. They would get in the way. I make use of my mind.

Bridget Riley

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I used to build up to sensation, accumulating tension until it released a perceptual experience

Bridget Riley

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