Representational images would only distract from her primary ideas. So she simplified her visual language to utilize only black and white and the elements of line, shape and form.

While complicating the color palette she was using, Riley simultaneously simplified her language of forms. She all but eliminated squares, triangles and circles, and focused largely on stripes throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Stripes lend themselves easily to a study of repetition, which Riley perceived as essential to getting people to really look... See more