11. Untitled [Fragment 1]

Printed on transparent Plexiglas in dense black ink, with a brilliant white backing, this series shows Riley working with new materials and imagery. Based on “fragments” of compositions from preparatory studies for her paintings, the series explores black as a structural element and demonstrates the range of forms the artist used in the early 1960s. Directional lines that curve, disks that expand and contract, chevrons placed at irregular intervals, and ovals that turn on their axes all reveal Riley’s process — which, in her words, takes a form “through its paces in order to find out what it can do.”