Michael Ayrton (1921-1975)

Daedalus was a subject that Ayrton returned to often in his sculpture, and in Maze Maker Ayrton shows the maze as a creation of self, made not just by Daedalus, but by all men. In Maze Maker, the image of Daedalus becomes, according to Ayrton: 'any man who, during his life, builds in and around himself a maze of circumstances and experiences and this, it seems to me, we all do. This labyrinth has two inevitably linked functions. It excludes to protect and contains to imprison' (see M. Ayrton, loc. cit.).