During the mid-1980s, Riley introduced a new pictorial device, the rhomboid, to her then predominantly vertical stripes, developing her exploration of interplaying tones of green, yellow and orange. This allowed the artist to construct new visual relationships between divergent colours and forms, creating what she terms a ‘harmony of contrasts’ that animates the entire visual field.


Tracking a transitional period in Riley’s career, the works on paper in this volume – studies produced between 1984 and 1995 – shift from a focus on the vertical stripe to increasingly complex diagonal compositions. Illustrated in full colour, the works are accompanied by a historic interview with the artist by Robert Kudielka and a text by Riley’s archivists Natalia Naish and Alexandra Tommasini, situating these studies in relation to major paintings produced during this period.

Interviewer(s): Robert Kudielka