Project 365 day 90: Looking

"Looking is, I feel, a vital aspect of existence. Perception constitutes our awareness of what it is to be human, indeed what it is to be alive."

J chose Bridget Riley as the artist for today's online Art Talk, run by her care centre. The group meet in a Facebook room, and each week one person chooses one or two paintings as a starting point for discussion, and says a bit about them. They are a small, diverse group of adults with different disabilities; I am there to sign for J, but join in a bit too. J likes these discussions: she has been dragged round art galleries since infancy and learned to enjoy a wide range of painting and sculpture, so she is reasonably knowledgeable, and she can prepare her comments in advance on her communication aid and search and upload photos of art works and links to websites for others to view. She accesses her computer with switch scanning: it's slow and laborious, but she uses it very effectively and with immense patience. 

On New Year's Day 2020 we visited the Bridget Riley exhibition at the Hayward Gallery on the South Bank. It was our last exhibition before our world closed down, and I thought it was excellent. I found her work interesting, but had never considered myself a huge fan of it - J is much more keen on her vivid colour and optical challenges. The exhibition gave me a much better understanding of how she worked and what she was trying to do; it didn't make me love her work, but it helped me appreciate it far better. 

Exhibitions and art galleries are among the things I have most missed this year. Today was officially the last day of shielding, but after some 380 days at home we are not about to rush back to anything. We will wait for second vaccinations, then look at the data as we start to emerge, but although we look forward to seeing people, bringing back some support for J and being out and about, we will probably remain cautious about crowded indoor environments for some time. I'd love to get back to Tate Modern or the Royal Academy this summer, but it feels too soon to be confident about anything.