Optical art icon Bridget Riley unveils huge new work at the National Gallery

One of modern British art’s most influential figures has made a grandstanding return to the big leagues, with a monumental new work unveiled this morning at London’s National Gallery.

Messengers, a new mural by op-art icon Bridget Riley, takes up a seriously sizeable ten by 20 metre chunk of the gallery’s internal Annenberg Court space. The gallery says that the title of Bridget’s piece is “inspired by a phrase Constable used when referring to clouds, but might also be an allusion to the numerous angels, bearers of news, that we see in the skies of so many National Gallery pictures.”

Talking to The Evening Standard earlier today, the National Gallery’s curator Daniel Herrmann says that when it came to finding the right artist for the space: “We knew we wanted to commission a major work of this size for this space and she was a perfect fit.”

Consisting of a series of muted dots, the work is, quite probably, rather hypnotic when you’re stood in front of it. Which you can as Messengers is available to view as of tomorrow for anyone who finds themselves with time to kill in central London and very little desire to go to M&M’s World. Again.