Gillian Ayres

Marlborough Graphics is delighted to present a selection of Gillian Ayres (1930 -2018) original drawings from the eighties. This online presentation coincides with the exhibition on view at the gallery in London, 14 September – 30 October 2021.

Drawings were for Gillian Ayres an essential part of her substantial output as an artist. Unlike her paintings, which tend to be large-scale and heavily worked with thick layers of oil paint, the drawings offered a more spontaneous and often more practical method of producing art. For example, in the cold and damp winter months the extended drying time of the oil paint proved unworkable, and Ayres would work relentlessly on the drawings to satisfy her compulsive desire to make pictures.

In keeping with the exuberant mass of gestures contained in her paintings, the drawings continue her relentless interrogation of line and form. Ayres applied quick and precise layers of acrylic and pastel, often revealing exposed paper. Whilst not explicitly representational, her drawings offer a rare insight in her fascinating intuitive approach to shapes and forms and the influence of the world around on her work.  

‘We all want truth, that is, reality. Art gets there in the form of poetic or artistic truths, which are products of the creative imagination. That’s what’s behind it all, and it means you want to shock yourself a bit, make something new. You could simply say that the imagination is anti-cliché, against known experience. You are always trying to find something you haven’t seen before, an experience that is true to oneself.’   - Gillian Ayres