Forty-eight years after her first exhibition at the Hayward Gallery made her the darling of the art world, Bridget Riley’s largest-ever retrospective has just opened on the South Bank. Tracing the titan’s creative development from adolescence onward, Bridget Riley includes figurative paintings she made as a schoolgirl at Cheltenham Ladies' College; the disorientating 1960s masterpieces that began an artistic revolution; and standout works such as 'Continuum', a metallic spiral booth (and the only sculpture the 88 year old has ever made). When Vogue photographed Riley in her east London studio [for the January 2018 issue], she spoke candidly about discipline, inspiration – and giving her life to her art. Read her full interview with fashion features editor and senior associate digital editor Ellie Pithers.
We’re sitting in your studio, which is a large room with a sort of walled off stage area, in east London. What did this building used to be?
A man called Mr Hega built this building as a refuge for women and children in the area, as a sort of antidote to the depression in the 1930s. This room was an auditorium – there’s a stage behind this wall. A few years ago, a man was standing outside looking at the building, so I asked if he was OK, and he said he had performed in a nativity here as a child. There are five pubs in the area, so the men would go to the pub and the women and children would come here and put on plays. We have two apartments so I can stay here overnight if I need to.
What was the art world like when you began your career?
In the 1960s, for everyone involved in the art world, there was a real excitement at being able to get started after all the endless frustrations of recovery from the war. It took a long time – it took ages to get going. But the interesting thing was how everyone was involved. There was a wide feeling of engagement. Vogue was big, absolutely, on both sides of the Atlantic. And I wrote something called ‘On Swimming Through A Diamond’ [an essay published in British Vogue in March 1984], about working with colour for this exhibition. And this little piece in British Vogue was about what I had experienced in Cornwall, about the Seven Bays – the bays are not mentioned specifically but they are all there – and I was always very pleased that Vogue published it.
You have a singularity of vision that has propelled and sustained you over the years. How have you remained so steadfast in your vision?
My work is all that I feel, really, and all that I think. So, in a way, it’s all that I have [laughs]. And… it’s a vehicle for my life. So, everything goes into it, and the disciplines are essential. I’ve exercised a discipline in my work, which has strengthened it and allowed me to give more of myself to it than if I had sort of…done a bit of work and then gone on and done a bit of something else. So, it is very interesting – I am interested in what I do and I’m interested in other painters, what they have done. I find the whole subject interesting.
I love the piece in Vogue because you talk about vision, and how you go out into the world and you see the sky, for instance, and you can never recapture that particular moment of vision, of how it looked that one time you saw it. I like how that idea comes through in your work – with this painting, looking at it, you don’t see the same thing twice.
Good, good. I hope I am able to sustain “looking”, so that there are more things to see. And, as you say, you come back to it another time and see it differently. That is very much what I believe in. And I think it’s what’s kept a lot of painters going: the fact that their own vision changes. And so they’re able to add to what they’ve been doing. You always part with some things, because your present tense will exclude… it must shift. How you look is as important as what you look at. And, gradually, it’s been shifted round, so that painting is a vehicle for sight. And so it is possible to look at some of the great masters of modern art and look through their eyes, look at how they looked. And that is a wonderful thing to do.
How do you want people to view your work? Is it best to sit down in front of this wall and stare at it for 20 minutes?
No, I think that the viewer is like me. I know he or she is like me. And what I see, they will see. So, as I’ve found my way into engagement with whatever piece of work I’m doing, so will they.
Tell me about this work in particular [we are sitting in front of ‘Quiver 3’, a very large work that entirely covers one wall].
I think painting starts with the support. In this case, the wall is the support. And the wall is absolutely flat. Seurat said that “painting is the art of hollowing a surface” [laughs]. The surface of a wall is a very obvious thing, but it’s impalpable. So, I both assert the wall and open it up into a series of planes. The wall… has become permeable, something which is taking up space inside itself, you know. You can look out from the painting and another bit of wall is around it – that’s completely fine, that’s wall. But down here where the white planes emerge, they are breaking that surface, hollowing it, as Seurat said. [laughs].
When you came into the room earlier, the first thing you did was have a look at the wall and say, “One of these triangles needs its edge straightening up.”
Yes, I’ve been worrying about it [laughs]. I’d seen it beforehand, and I had thought, no, I don’t think that’s right, and it was a wonderful opportunity to just do it and see how it looks.
And is that something instinctive, something you feel isn’t quite right, or is it an aesthetic pattern you’re working from?
No, it’s an instinctive feeling – I know it’s not right. Or, I know it is right. That is something which I listen to and pay great attention to, and always have. That is a guiding light. And you may have to give up something you have anticipated will be good or a success... If you give something up which you have really pinned a lot of hopes on, you find your way. You are no longer blocked by a misleading concept.
What do you do when you need to reset your mind?
With each endeavour, with each group of work, I don’t understand it to begin with. That’s part of the pleasure and the excitement and the interest in actually working with it. When I do understand it, I lose interest.
You’ve figured it out?
I’ve experienced it, I think. And the evidence is there. The paintings are there or the studies are there. And I look for a way out. I look for the next thing. And, somewhere, there will be a hint. Something… thinking about it when I’m away from it, I will suddenly see – or think – “Oh, I know what I do next.” It grows out of it.
.jpg)
Are you very disciplined with your time? Do you work every day?
No, I don’t get the chance unfortunately.
You live in west London?
Yes, that’s right. But there are an awful lot of things to do – like talking to you. And… that I do that is part and parcel of my work, which I have to do. The best time for me to work is straight out of bed in the morning. If I can, I get up, make a cup of tea, and sometimes I don’t even drink it. I get into the studio, and I can then work, because I’m very close to… I suppose what I have been close to, my unconscious. So I am only just coming out of that. I have access to a level which, as the day takes shape, tends to get distracted. I can recover it. But it’s best in the morning. That kind of lucidity. Being in touch with what one is actually really feeling.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
More from British Vogue:
