CAROLINE AYLES

Caroline Ayles Biography

 

 

Caroline Ayles has had no formal art-school training yet her work betrays an obvious talent for close observation and painterly technique. Her paintings are meticulously crafted by building up layers of pigment and glazes which, when complete, reflect the very texture of the surfaces of the subjects which she has chosen to observe.

Most of Ayles' work has been created either as a series on a particular theme or as a sequence. Her approach is to look at subjects in a filmic way - as a camera might travel over a façade or enter a room, focus on one aspect, and then revisit it at different moments. She is fascinated by time and how, as it passes, a subject or composition will change. Nothing is ever exactly as it was; climate, light, temperature and organic matter all become different over time and it is those stages of transformation which she attempts to capture.

Colours become warmer or cooler, shadows move and appear to change the position of objects in a composition; flowers fade and then decay. In this way her work becomes the observation of a time changed narrative.

The façade paintings clearly owe a debt to Thomas Jones' vivid studies of Neopolitan buildings. However Ayles has subtly developed the Jones theme, showing not just one aspect of a building at one point in time but also how that same façade changes over the course of a defined period. Light and colour tones gently move through the spectrum, shadows change shape and sometimes even disappear. These "landscapes" are a moving visual tonal feast.

The paintings somehow manage to create their own mystery. There is a quiet stillness about them which is a happy antidote to the pressures and speed of modern life. Here is a master practitioner in the traditional disciplines of painting and whose work merits detailed observation.


Group Exhibitions Include:

1998		Chelsea Art Society Annual Exhibition
1999		Chelsea Art Society Annual Exhibition
2000		Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London
		Thompson Gallery, London
2002		Art 2002: The London Art Fair, Portland Gallery
		Spring Exhibition, Portland Gallery, London
		Summer Exhibition, Portland Gallery, London
2003		Art London, Portland Gallery, London
2005		Chase Art Fair

Solo Exhibitions Include:

2004

Portland Gallery, London

Collections Include:

Gary Rhodes
Palace of Westminster
Sir Tim Rice
Tricorn Partners