Today I spent lunchtime looking at the Bridget Riley prints in the RWA Gallery. http://www.rwa.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/2011/10/exhibition-bridget-riley/
They were part of a bigger exhibition, including work by Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin (of which, more another day).
The Riley prints were especially interesting given that we have been doing two workshops on screen printing. The most obvious reaction was to admire the extremely skilful registration of the prints, and to admire the large scale of many of these works. I also very much liked the colour placing and mixing, sometimes obvious and sometimes quite strange conjunction between opposing and complementary colours, like orange and blue.
There were a whole series of prints based around this swirling, wave-like design:
I also began to wonder about the ownership and creativity of some of the work. How many different varieties of coloured lines can you produce, and still find it original, and still command enormous prices?
What is the difference between some of Riley's designs and some much more humdrum and commercially produced work, e.g. in wallpapers, wrapping paper, etc? I know this sounds like sacrilege, but it seems to me that there is a very fine, and often invisible line, between 'high' and 'fine' art, and everyday decent design.
The exhibition also included work by Michael Kidner, another British Op artist of whom I had not previously heard. His work was also interesting because of the constant tessellations, many of them hexagonal, so his paintings looked very much like old English-method patchwork quilts.
However, I later looked him up on-line and discovered that he actually produced a much more diverse body of work, some rather like Riley, and some more original. The relationship between both these artists and regular patchwork quilt designs is quite striking.
They were part of a bigger exhibition, including work by Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin (of which, more another day).
The Riley prints were especially interesting given that we have been doing two workshops on screen printing. The most obvious reaction was to admire the extremely skilful registration of the prints, and to admire the large scale of many of these works. I also very much liked the colour placing and mixing, sometimes obvious and sometimes quite strange conjunction between opposing and complementary colours, like orange and blue.
There were a whole series of prints based around this swirling, wave-like design:
What is the difference between some of Riley's designs and some much more humdrum and commercially produced work, e.g. in wallpapers, wrapping paper, etc? I know this sounds like sacrilege, but it seems to me that there is a very fine, and often invisible line, between 'high' and 'fine' art, and everyday decent design.
The exhibition also included work by Michael Kidner, another British Op artist of whom I had not previously heard. His work was also interesting because of the constant tessellations, many of them hexagonal, so his paintings looked very much like old English-method patchwork quilts.
However, I later looked him up on-line and discovered that he actually produced a much more diverse body of work, some rather like Riley, and some more original. The relationship between both these artists and regular patchwork quilt designs is quite striking.
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