Debbie Ayles

My paintings explore effects of chance patterns of light that appear on city and vernacular architecture, those momentary glimpses of shapes that occur as reflections or shadows on structures creating a fascinating disturbance to the surface. I use my drawings of rigid glass, concrete, wooden or metal architecture to create energetic and yet simplified paintings cityscapes, the parallel and metaphor of solid structures converted into more fragile ephemeral entities through the medium of water-based paints. The forms I discover within these drawings create a unique view of a subject.

Using watercolour and acrylic washes, poured and spattered paint I develop the background of each painting to suit the image that joins with it on the final layer. The behaviour of paint, colour and support as these materials meld, the unpredictability of temperature and humidity of the studio environment on these elements in that instant of painting, enable the work to create an individual statement of its own. The abstract painterly background is then reined in by my carefully painting of the structural ‘drawing’, transposed with varying densities of paint to create a new construction assembled from geometric and organic shapes composed from the original source and recalling the original fleeting experience.

The calm ghostliness of the structure and the maelstrom and power of the colour blend the concept of the abstraction and realism. Often quoted but none the less significant, Paul Klee’s statement ‘Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see’ motivates me to draw the attention of a viewer through painting to what is there but often unnoticed and quite beautiful.