Her dazzling patterns and waving lines of colour have created a style that is unmistakably BRIDGET RILEY. As Robert Hughes commented in The Shock of the New, 'What seem, at first, variations of a "mere" pattern turn into metaphors of unease, uncertainties tuned with an exquisite poetic skill'.
Bridget Riley has become Britain's leading abstract artist and this month she is holding not one but two exhibitions, her first in London for five years. In this film she talks in her studio about why she paints and the way she paints-finding out what the eye can see, exploring what looking actually feels like. 'Looking', she says, 'is a pleasure - a continual surprise '.
Film cameraman A. A. ENGLANDER Film editor ROY AYTON
Written and directed by DAVID THOMPSON An ARTS COUNCIL film