I grew up with David Hockney.

Not literally. I never knew him. But his work appeared at regular intervals throughout my life as a painter, and each time it seemed that he had gone off somewhere I hadn’t expected.

When I first became aware of him, it was through his portraits, drawings, and paintings of flowers. I was struck by the fact that he was so unapologetically representational at a moment when so much of the contemporary painting around me seemed to be heading in the opposite direction. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. In my mind, he sat somewhere between Matisse and Fairfield Porter. There was Matisse’s flattening of space and pleasure in color, but also something of Porter’s conviction that the world immediately around you, your friends, your rooms, the flowers on the table, was sufficient material for serious painting.

When people first encounter Bridget Riley's stripe paintings, they often assume the work is highly calculated. The stripes appear so precise, so controlled, that it is easy to imagine a system determining the outcome.

The reality is more interesting.

Riley was not trying to make a system. She was trying to understand color.