 Reilly's early abstract paintings reflected various influences of prominent artists of the time including Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, Ronald Davis, Jules Olitski, and Trevor Bell.Each of these abstract painters dealt with structure, color, atmosphere, light and ambiguous space; elements that would eventually converge in Reilly's abstract paintings.Shortly after moving to Los Angeles in 1978, Reilly's geometric abstraction emerged, extracting and redefining elements prevalent in contemporary abstract painting.