Gillian Ayres – an original young British artist

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Ian Jones reports on ‘Gillian Ayres: Paintings from the 50s’

The current exhibition at the Jerwood Gallery features the work of abstract artist Gillian Ayres.  The exhibition brings together the largest number of her paintings from the 1950s ever assembled.  This collection of early work is complemented by a solo show of her current work at the gallery of her agent Alan Cristea in Cork Street, London.

The exhibitions mark a double anniversary for Gillian.  She was elected an Associate Royal Academician (one of the few women members of the RA) 30 years ago and it is 50 years since the ‘Situation’ exhibition that showcased many of the ‘young British artists’ of the time. 

Gillian Ayres was born in 1930, the youngest of three sisters.  She attended Ibstock Place School, Roehampton; which at the time was considered a progressive school because it encouraged young children to learn through play, activity and expression.  After being accepted by the Slade School of Fine Art, then rejected for being too young at aged 16, Gillian studied at the Camberwell School of Art from 1946 until 1950.  After working at the AIA (Artists International Association) Gallery, London for nine years Gillian Ayres left to begin a teaching career.  It was a career that was to last from 1960 until 1981 and included positions at Bath Academy of Art, Corsham; St Martin’s School of Art, London and Winchester School of Art.  At aged 51 she ceased teaching to become a full-time painter. 

One of the founding aims of the AIA was to promote wider access to art through travelling exhibitions and public mural paintings.  Although ‘Gillian Ayres: Paintings from the 50s’ will not travel to other galleries, it does feature a mural that Gillian created for Hampstead High School for Girls.  It was the first work that she created on such a large scale and consists of four panels measuring over seven feet high and widths of three, four, nine and eleven feet.

Her early abstract work on show in the exhibition was painted on huge sheets of hardboard.  Painting on hardboard or wood rather than canvas has important advantages for an artist beginning their career: it is cheap and accessible.  In many ways it is a superior support to canvas because it is rigid while being painted on and this feature is vital to Gillian’s work.  Her paintings are created by working on the studio floor using broad physical movements, so the boards were often lifted and tilted to mix colours together in an almost ink-in-liquid effect.  The boards were not primed or prepared and on some works the hardboard manufacturer stamp can still be seen. Now, after 60 years, they are still incredibly bright and vibrant in colour.

Abstract art employs a non-literal use of form, line and colour and is perhaps more open to personal interpretation than some other art.  In his speech at the preview of this exhibition the chairman of the Jerwood Foundation, Alan Grieve, said that ‘Art means different things to different people, which is one of the things that makes it special.’  To attempt to interpret Gillian’s works in a literal sense can be a mistake: in one painting I saw an image suggesting a festival in Pamplona, Spain with a bull running through the streets; my fellow visitor saw a racoon.  Unstill Centre, 1959 conjures up feelings of autumn leaves being tossed by the wind. 

In the era of Google Images and Google Museum Tours is it really necessary to visit a gallery?  On the website the National Gallery, London is a list of ten reasons to visit including learning about and being inspired by art; both of which can be achieved via computer.  They also list ‘having a good lunch.’  But it is only possible to get a sense of the scale of works of art by seeing them in person.  The paintings on show in this exhibition are large, in excess of eight feet by four feet and are displayed with an equal sense of scale and proportion in the huge Foreshore Gallery at the Jerwood.  It is also only possible to experience the sense of depth in a work of art by actually going to see it.  The thick impasto used by Gillian Ayres, where paint is laid down very thickly or built up layer upon layer, needs to be seen on the work itself to be really understood. 

‘Gillian Ayres: Paintings from the 50s’ runs until 25 November 2012 at the Jerwood Gallery, Hastings East Sussex.  Opening times are Tuesday–Friday 11 a.m.–4 p.m.; Saturday–Sunday 11 a.m.–6 p.m.