She spoke about indulging in colour, feasting on beauty, feeling a little giddy when drinking in glorious hues and textures \u2013 and not searching too deeply for meaning.<\/p>\n
So in these gloomy times, a major retrospective of the work of the artist Gillian Ayres in her adopted Devon<\/a> homeland may be just the job.<\/p>\n Entitled A Life in Colour, the show at The Box in Plymouth, which has just won the prestigious Art Fund museum of the year award<\/a>, is billed as a re-examination of one of Britain\u2019s most radical female artists.<\/p>\n Hannah Hooks, contemporary art curator at The Box<\/a>, described Ayres, who died in 2018 aged 88, as formidable and brilliant.<\/p>\n \u201cHer fearless commitment to painting is something to be celebrated,\u201d she said. \u201cShe came of age in a postwar British art world dominated by men and remained entirely faithful to painting as it went in and out of fashion. Gillian was a painter\u2019s painter. The fact that she isn\u2019t better known by more people is something we hope to change.\u201d<\/p>\n Sundark Blues, 1994. Photograph: Mark Heathcote and Oliver Cowlin\/\u00a9 Estate of Gillian Ayres RA CBE<\/p>\n Hooks said installing the paintings had been a privilege.<\/p>\n \u201cThe colour knocks you off your feet. It\u2019s incredible to be surrounded by it and to sense the movement of Gillian\u2019s body, the way she\u2019s creating balance and tension. There\u2019s chaos and beauty in this riot of colour. She spoke of how colour made her feel heady; it was almost a spiritual experience for her.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re seeing this exhibition as a chance to think about the power of art and creativity to communicate emotion in a non-verbal way. It comes at a time when the creative subjects are under-funded and underrepresented so we want to champion and celebrate the power of the imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n Ayres at her studio in 2002. Photograph: Antonio Olmos\/The Observer<\/p>\n It was not about meaning, Hook continued. Ayres didn\u2019t want people to try to make sense of her work, \u201cintellectualise\u201d it or attempt to find the representation within it.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s really important in the world at the moment to find the space and time to look, to observe, to enjoy using your eyes, not to try to make sense of things but to really delight in a visual experience.\u201d<\/p>\n Ayres was born in London in 1930. Inspired by Turner, Picasso and Pollock, she became a significant figure in arts education as well as an artist<\/a> in her own right.<\/p>\n She moved from London and spent time living and working in north Wales but for the last 30 years of her life hunkered down in north Devon, her studio described by one visitor<\/a> as a \u201ccheery muddle of paint-spatter, house plants, stepladders, tins of colour and canvasses\u201d.<\/p>\n