Bio

Diane Ayott, painter, received an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and served as a professor of art at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA and at Salem State University, Salem, MA. She lives and maintains a studio practice in Salem, MA.

Ayott’s work has been shown at many venues over her career to date. Among those are: Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, NYC and Bridgehampton, NY, Art Market Provincetown, Provincetown, MA, Bernay Fine Art, Great Barrington, MA, Art Bank Gallery, Washington, DC, Matthew Swift Gallery, Gloucester, MA, OK Harris, NYC, Washington Square East Galleries, NYC,  Woman Made, Chicago, IL, Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA, Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA, Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA, Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA, HallSpace, Boston, MA, Merrimack College, North Andover, MA, Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, MA, Museum of Art, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, McIninch Gallery, Southern New Hampshire University, Manchester, NH, Warm Springs Gallery, Charlottesville, VA, and the US Department of State Art Bank Program, Art Bank Gallery, Harry S Truman Building, Washington, DC.

Ayott’s paintings and works on paper are in several private contemporary art collections throughout the United States as well as in Germany and Sweden. Among public collections that hold her work are a contemporary works on paper collection of American artists, at the State Department Art Bank Collection, in Washington, DC, and a suite of works on paper are in the collection of the NY Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan.

Read full interview with Ayott, Kathryn Markel Gallery

My art is informed by both contemporary and modernist painting. I use acrylic and oil paint as well as various collage materials on paper, panel, and canvas. I explore pattern and repetition, not for the sake of pattern and repetition but for the dream-like, meditative experience it offers me. 

Over time, visual information accrues in my work. The meditative process sets up spatial relationships and intriguing color vibrations. The overall begins to emerge and holds me in a kind of intimate conversation, yet it looms large. The skewed nature of the geometry dips into the awkward. Color relationships, as well as other bits of information, populate the surfaces.  It is in that complex space of relationships that I make art. 

In some cases, the repeating patterns and vibrating color allow the mark-making to shimmer and at other times the work pulls into a quiet and calmer feeling. Some sessions can completely change the once followed direction. A simple addition of bits of text or a newer mark can shift the lay of the land. I follow those instincts.  My intention is to express individual clarity in each painting as fully as I can.