Hello everyone. Freya here, GWL volunteer, taking over this account for #StillSeeingThings this afternoon. Today we are going to start with Fiona Alderton's tour around some the female artists in the National Galleries collection!

Fiona Alderton is a gallery educator and storyteller at the National Galleries (London). We are using her quick tour of some of her favourite female artists in the galleries collection today to get a lesson about female artists throughout history!

Take a look at the video tour here; https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/stories/tour-women-in-our-collection (10 minute video)

Fiona Alderton has given us such a great introduction to some really interesting female artists. I thought today I would choose two of these artists to find out more about. #StillSeeingThings

Watching that lovely tour of the National Gallery collections really has made me miss going to art galleries… but has also made me so glad that there are such great resources online!

I have chosen to look a little more in depth at two of the artist that are featured in the video, Bridget Riley and Rachel Ruysch. Let's start with Bridget Riley!

I am so glad that Alderton makes a point of saying that Riley is unusual in their collection in the fact that she is alive and female. This just reminds us how often art collections are dominated by men. This is why I feel it's really important to draw attention female artists!

It reminds me of this amazing image from feminist art group, Guerilla Girls. This is from 1989 so hopefully these stats have improved...

Representation of female artists is something organisations such as the National Gallery are working hard on - but Riley's status as alive and female as unusual in their collection is a reminder of the barriers that face women in the arts #StillSeeingThings @NationalGallery

Bridget Riley was born in 1931 in London. She gained an art education from Goldsmiths College (1949-1952) and the Royal College of Art (1952-1955).

In her very early career she painted figure subjects in a 'semi-impressionist' style #StillSeeingThings #BridgetRiley

However, she soon began painting using pointillism - a technique of painting using small dots of colour to build up an image. Riley was very influenced by George Seurat in this development of style. #pointillism

Riley took on Seurat's approach to art 'as an optical science'. At this time (the 1960s), Riley began making work in the black and white style which she first became well known for.

This painting 'Fall' (1963) is one of Riley's most well known. The optical illusion of the black and white lines create a dizzying effect. This style of painting became known as op art. #opart

I think it's amazing how the images seem to move and dance! Riley has spoken about taking inspiration from many things including reflections in water, Umberto Boccioni's sculptures, and the bright colours used in Indian and Egyptian art.

Here is one of Riley's recent works featuring lot's of colour. This one has a great title; 'Standing Up, Turning Round, Lying Down' (2015).

The huge installation that we see in the National Gallery video I shared is a work called 'Messengers'. This title comes from the artist John Constable's phrase for clouds. I love this - clouds as little messengers!

In 'Messengers', discs of colour have been painted directly onto the walls of the Annenberg Court in the National Galleries. The discs float like clouds in the sky. As is common with Riley's work - an 'after-image' is left in the viewers eye when you look away.

That is Bridget Riley herself standing on the balcony viewing the artwork in the previous photograph! The work was unveiled in January 2019.

'Messengers' is a tribute to the art that has inspired it, as well as to the process of looking at art itself. We love this at #StillSeeingThings !

Riley is still working today and had an exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh just last year. The List called her 'one of the UK's greatest living painters'. Would you agree with this?

Here is a lovely video of Bridget Riley speaking about her work . Have a look now or save for later if you like as I am going to move on to the second artist of today's #StillSeeingThings , Rachel Ruysch.

Rachel Ruysch lived from 1664 - 1750. Ruysch was from a wealthy family in the Netherlands.