Fission 1963

Bridget Riley created this painting, Fission, in black and white, and you can tell she was really thinking about how the eye moves across a surface. I can imagine her in the studio, maybe listening to some groovy tunes, trying to figure out how to make these dots kinda vibrate. It's not just about the dots themselves, but how they relate to each other, how they make us feel a little dizzy, like things are moving when they're totally still. Riley's got this system going on, but it's not just cold and calculated. There's a kind of playfulness. She's pushing the limits of what painting can do, making it less about representation and more about pure sensation. There's something about the optical effects in this work that feel connected to a whole history of artists messing with our perceptions. They are always pushing the boundaries of what we think art is supposed to be.