Byblos
2017
Gillian Ayres
Some artists are simply heroic.
Gillian Ayres went to study art at Camberwell College of Arts, but found the course too restrictive. So she left and went to work as a chambermaid in a Paris hotel. Neither she nor her vibrant art ever looked back.
This is abstract art.
People often call any art which is hazy or strange 'abstract', but really it's work like this which works purely with colour and shape.
I love this particular work which Ayres painted just a year before her death. We imagine that we can see movement and depth in it (although that's just an illusion), and there's a pleasing sense of balance about it. But, for me, it's the colour: the bouncing, lively colour which is such fun and so beautiful.
Her obituary in the New York Times said she was "besotted by paint". What a legacy she's left us.
Comments