Maggie Ayres

Purple Route

After years of exploration with a variety of processes and materials, I think of myself as a mixed media artist, though currently painting in oils predominantly.
All my abstract work is driven by a sense of connection to place and humanity.
I aim to express a personal, emotional response to experiences and nature against a socio-political background.
This quotation from James Joyce is at the heart of what I do:
“in the particular is contained the universal”.

Behind the Scenes
Click image to enlarge

About My Practice

Currently oil painting offers me the most exciting and personal means of creative expression.
After a lot of time spent looking, drawing, mark-making and writing, I begin to paint in many textured layers, scraping back to reveal the under stories, then adding more and more.
I work over several paintings at the same time, which allows me to build my narrative more strongly while all the work becomes related.
Explorations of texturing with clay and paper offer me further tactile additions to the story and are necessarily connected to my core themes of belonging and oneness.

Tools & Materials

First there are the oil paints and sturdy braced wooden panels.
Then there is my ever-growing collection of scrapers, palette knives, squeegees and brushes. I gather all manner of sticks, stones, feathers for painting, scratching and gouging surfaces.
Mark making.
Now wild clay is added to my practice to explore layering, pressing and sculpting pieces, fired in my back garden.
Recycled paper moulded with found rusty metal is the next addition.
All kinds of tools and materials for exploration.