Michael Ayrton (1921-1975)

The metaphor of the maze in Greek mythology became a driving force in Ayrton's works. Most important of all was the metaphor of the maze as a prison that offers in its passages and dead ends mere illusions of escape. This symbolic meaning with which the maze was to become endowed was described by Ayrton himself when he said of Daedalus 'He has become any man who during his life builds in and around himself a Maze of Circumstance and experience which, it seems to me, we all do.'

(see introduction to Exhibition catalogue, Michael Ayrton, Maze Maker, Bath, The Victoria Art Gallery, 1984)