Hugh Byrne is a visual artist currently residing and working in Cape Town, South Africa.

He completed an honours degree in Fine Arts from the University of Pretoria. Byrne combines bold colour, texture and geometric planes and illustrates the tensions between geometry and abstraction, structure and dynamism.

The artist investigates hidden shapes and forms that lie unassumingly just below the surface of the landscapes that surround us.

Byrne said: “The process of completing my works has been one of trial-and-error; often frustrating, but ultimately productive. My initial dissatisfaction with many of the pieces encouraged a number of creative re-workings, which occasioned exciting, new forms: instead of stripping the canvas and starting again, I taped off the areas that I felt were successful and painted over what I considered problematic.”

He added: “This mode of praxis resulted in works that feature large areas of negative space, and isolated shapes with unique characteristics. I then exaggerated their individuality by introducing new mark-making and brush stroke techniques. By subjecting the canvas to multiple revisions via layering, erasure and addition, the history of the painting can be gleaned from it’s very surface.”

See more of his work here.

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