GILLIAN AYRES
Artists & Illustrators 21the least successful of her pictures,
I would die a happy man.”
This confidence in colour and belief
in the image forms what Andrew calls
the artist’s ‘painterly intelligence’. “It’s
worth trying to see some of the rare
footage of Gillian actually painting,” he
adds. “She stares and stares, and then
suddenly scoops up soft, recently mixed paint and pushes
it onto the canvas with her hands. I think paint as a
material object – part of the dirty, sloppy world that we all
live in – matters very much to her and this is important in
the chilly, glossy, digitalised world of today.” And if there’s
one reason to value and celebrate the work of Gillian Ayres
today, it’s this passionate commitment to colour and paint.
Gillian Ayres is at the National Museum Cardiff until
3 September 2017 and Gillian Ayres: Paintings and Woodcuts
is at Alan Cristea Gallery, London, until 22 April 2017. A
monograph, Gillian Ayres, by Martin Gayford with introduction
by Andrew Marr, is published in April by Art Books, £45.
http://www.museum.wales/cardiff; http://www.alancristea.com;
http://www.artbookspublishing.co.uk“SHE STARES AND
STARES, AND
THEN SUDDENLY
SCOOPS UP SOFT,
RECENTLY MIXED
PAINT AND
PUSHES IT ONTO
THE CANVAS
WITH HER HANDS”LEFT A Midsummer
Night, 1990, oil on
canvas, triptych,
183x369cm
BELOW Dawn Bright
Lawn, 2013,
oil on canvas,
122x244cm18 Gillian Ayres.indd 21 07/04/2017 10:55