Gillian Ayres

(bron: The Royal Academy of Arts)


Gillian Ayres in haar atelier. (bron en foto: George Wright)


Gillian Ayres in her studio, 2012(?). (bron: The Sunday Times)


Gillian Ayres in her studio, 2015.

"Gillian Ayres lives much too far away, at least for visitors (it seems to suit her rather well). From London, you take the train to Exeter, then drive west as far as Launceston and north in the direction of the seaside town of Bude. As you eat up the miles, village after village sails by, each one tinier than the last, until you reach hers — and even then, you’re not done.

The final stage of the odyssey involves a dramatic drive down a single-track lane, thick woods on either side. So steep is it that twice I give up and turn back, thinking this cannot possibly be right. But then, at last, I hit the valley bottom. Here is a clutch of hunkered houses, of which Tall Trees, Ayres’s butter-coloured cottage, is the very last. Sliding up her path in the soft spring rain, I feel a little like a child in a fairy tale. Where am I? This place feels secret, lost, as if time has stood still.
...." (bron: Christie's)