"In October I will be ninety. It’s time to reflect on an event which changed my life. In 1965 I was sent the catalogue of The Responsive Eye. I describe this remarkable experience in my art memoir “Galloping on a Hobbyhorse”. Why did the catalogue of an exhibition of Op Art in New York (at the Museum of Modern Art) have such a profound and immediate effect on my life? The answer lies in the nature of this form of expression. The name [Op Art] trivializes a serious, revolutionary addition to art history. Far from the passing fad its name suggested, Op Art should be regarded as Pop Art’s serious younger sister. Unlike the Pop artists who preceded them, the Responsive Eye artists rejected figurative art completely. In the catalogue, William Seitz asserts ‘no verbalisation however eloquent can explain the variability of color tones or the astonishing results of the interaction; for color is the most relational and unpredictable of media.’ He was right but it was not his excellent, scholarly essay which captivated me. It was the colour images of optical paintings, despite the obvious limitations of the small photographic substitutes for the actual paintings.’ I had been committed to abstraction from the start but until I saw optical painting I suspected all imagery, including abstraction originated in a figurative source, albeit hidden from all but the most perceptive viewer. Optical painting demonstrated this was a fallacy. But for all my fascination with the characteristics of optical painting, I am not an Op artist. Vasarelli, Davis, Albers, Anuszkiewicz, Riley, Poons and the others represented in the catalogue had refined their craft which shone with mature brilliance. I was just starting out and the Responsive Eye was my point of departure. I would apply the principles I discovered in optical painting for the rest of my career, but they are a means to an end not the end itself. The end in my sights was the exploration of the space created by geometry rendered in optically adjusted colour and the fascinating ambiguity which is the outcome. There they are geometry, colour and ambiguity the foundations on which my work is built." Col Jordan.