Gillian Ayres is one of Britain's leading abstract painters. A Midsummer Night owes its inspiration to the artist's experience of India, where she spent several weeks painting in 1990. Her aim is to create intense compositions of exuberant colour, form and texture which offer a rich visual experience to the viewer. She said:
'People think beauty is sort of slushy or something. I was surprised the other day by Howard Hodgkin saying he didn't like things to be 'just beautiful'. But why not? I think beauty can lift you up and sort of take your feet away from the ground, but I also think it's very sensible, a sort of reasonable thing. I mean, if the world doesn't care about it, then I think the world's potty.'
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