The Mesmerising Power of Bridget Riley

There's no denying it: Bridget Riley's art has a physical effect on you. So much so that gallery attendants at Turner Contemporary in Margate for Bridget Riley: Learning to See have been advised to avert their eyes from the paintings regularly. Stand in front of those curves and waves, or the precise narrow brightly coloured vertical stripes that fill some works, and you may feel you are swaying. You become slightly dizzy or a little queasy, even perhaps a bit seasick; well, it can get pretty choppy out there on the North Sea, just beyond the gallery walls. Nothing too alarming or extreme, though; it's just a perception. When we went to see this Bridget Riley show w e knew what to expect, having been in July 2019 to the blockbuster exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh that brought together half a century of pictures in a dazzling extravaganza of Op Art abstraction. It moved to the Hayward Gallery in...

The Mesmerising Power of Bridget Riley

There's no denying it: Bridget Riley's art has a physical effect on you. So much so that gallery attendants at Turner Contemporary in Margate for Bridget Riley: Learning to See have been advised to avert their eyes from the paintings regularly.

Stand in front of those curves and waves, or the precise narrow brightly coloured vertical stripes that fill some works, and you may feel you are swaying. You become slightly dizzy or a little queasy, even perhaps a bit seasick; well, it can get pretty choppy out there on the North Sea, just beyond the gallery walls. Nothing too alarming or extreme, though; it's just a perception.

When we went to see this Bridget Riley show we knew what to expect, having been in July 2019 to the blockbuster exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh that brought together half a century of pictures in a dazzling extravaganza of Op Art abstraction. It moved to the Hayward Gallery in London later that year.

This free exhibition was much smaller, but no less stimulating. It certainly had the three of us who went together interacting with the art and with each other, discussing how Riley's neat and mathematically precise patterns affected our senses as well as our equilibrium. And we found ourselves examining the works from different angles, seeing how they appeared to change as we moved around.

Take a look at Current: Dark Colours 12. The 156 x 267 cm piece of linen is covered in row upon row of identical-sized triangles painted in oil in three colours. However, they're not all the same shape. The horizontal lines are all straight, but some of the triangles have convex and concave sides; other shapes form in front of your eyes, in particular larger triangles. In some instances they create a rippling effect. Stare long enough and your eyes can create a circle out of six triangles together.

The effect grows more disconcerting the longer you look.

Time for something calmer, perhaps. Pharoah, like Dark Colours, is a very recent work. Bridget Riley's pursuit of form and rhythm continues into her 90s. Are these multi-coloured stripes the same width, or is it an optical illusion? That's the question you ask yourself as you stand in front of the artwork.

As the Turner Contemporary is right by the sea, perhaps nothing could be more apt than waves. Some are large and vertical, as in Cataract 1, a painting that dates back to 1967.

There are similar-coloured waves, but thin and horizontal, in Streak 3, from the start of the 1980s, with an uncanny resemblance to certain brands of toothpaste.

Both works have the property of appearing three-dimensional as you walk in front of them. The striped lines seem to flow and make the canvases look as if they aren't flat but padded or indeed bolstered to create a regular pattern of dips and bumps. Look closely and you realise how the troughs and crests of the waves are formed by changing the widths of the lines. The preliminary studies on show reveal how Riley used graph paper to work everything out on a small scale first.

And, just when you've been almost overwhelmed by the waves, everything opens out onto a huge white wall with a pattern of dinner plate-sized spots in a light-filled room.

You've possibly seen something similar at the National Gallery in London, where discs created by Riley have adorned the walls of the staircase in the Annenberg Court since 2019. The National notes that the title of that work, Messengers, was inspired by a phrase Constable used when referring to clouds drifting in the sky. It might also be an allusion to the numerous angels, bearers of news, that we see in the skies of so many National Gallery pictures.

The circles in Margate -- a work called Dancing to the Music of Time -- won't enjoy such longevity. They're a copy, created by Riley's assistants, of an original in the National Gallery in Australia, and when this show ends, the wall will be repainted white in preparation for the next exhibition. Luckily, you've got plenty of time to get down to Margate before that happens.

Practicalities

Bridget Riley: Learning to See is on at Turner Contemporary in Margate until May 4. It's open on Wednesdays to Sundays, as well as bank holidays, from 1100 to 1700. Entry is free. We spent an hour going round, including a few minutes enjoying JMW Turner's Waves Breaking on a Lee Shore at Margate, which is on loan from the Tate (and shows just how choppy it can get outside). The gallery is just 10 to 15 minutes walk along the front from Margate station; there are direct trains to Margate from London Victoria and St Pancras, taking between 1 1/2 and 1 3/4 hours.

If you're quick....

There's also a chance to see a Bridget Riley show at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris; it runs until January 25.

Images

Bridget Riley (b. 1931), Current: Dark Colours 12, 2025, Private collection. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates, London. © Bridget Riley 2025. All rights reserved. Courtesy of the artist
Bridget Riley, Pharoah, 2024, Private collection. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates, London. © Bridget Riley 2025. All rights reserved. Courtesy of the artist

Bridget Riley, Streak 3, 1980, Private collection. Photo: John Webb. © Bridget Riley 2025. All rights reserved. Courtesy of the artist
Installation view from Bridget Riley: Learning to See, 2025. Courtesy Turner Contemporary. Photo: Above Ground Studio (Seraphina Neville). © Turner Contemporary. Photo shows Dancing to the Music of Time, 2022, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

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