Bridget Riley Quotes

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

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

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 are in conflict.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

The word 'paradox' has always had a kind of magic for me, and I think my pictures have a paradoxical quality, a paradox of chaos and order in one.

For me nature is not landscape, but the dynamism of visual forces.

I think this lack of a center has something to do with the loss of certainties that Christianity had to offer.

Focusing isn't just an optical activity, it is also a mental one.

I work with nature, although in completely new terms.