Alfons Bytautas

Alfons Bytautas RSA

This exhibition features a diverse range of artwork dating from 2018 through to the most recent collage works, completed earlier this year.

Born in Selkirk in the Scottish Borders and now based in Newcastle upon Tyne, Alfons Bytautas RSA studied at Edinburgh College of Art (1972-77) before going to Paris to study at Atelier 17, the studio of the esteemed Modernist printmaker Stanley William Hayter. Bytautas was Master Printmaker at Edinburgh Printmakers' Workshop from 1979 to 2009, where he was instrumental in developing and promoting innovative print techniques. Bytautas was elected an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1994 and became a Royal Scottish Academician in 2005.

Reflections

'I am interested in making work informed by my interest in esoteric systems, codes, signs and symbols – from the magical symbolism of alchemy to the pixels and binary codes of our digital world.'

'These mysterious or specialised systems were designed to process verbal and visual information and require a “key” of some kind to allow access. Although they may not have been designed to be aesthetically pleasing, they often have an innate beauty. I don’t think of the images I make as being either abstact or figurative. Geometrical figures are mostly perceived as being “abstract” in art and there is certainly an underlying geometrical system in a lot of these works – a simple grid. This pattern of crossed vertical and horizontal lines is often merely implied and might appear in my work, not through a predetermined system or process but unconsciously. Making a grid structure is, after all, a simple and elegant way of imposing order.'

'Wonderful magical things can and do occur, if we simply choose to let them happen.'

'It also tends to emphasize the essentially two-dimensional nature of the artwork, working against any attempt to create illusory space. It is immensely helpful in creating pattern and is a useful tool for exploring any number of things from mathematical progression to colour contrasts. It is also suggests play and the grid structure is a fundamental aspect of many board games (often with very ancient origins).

'For all of us, play is a useful activity for freeing the mind and for tapping into unconcsious creativity. I find that making art never feels like work, unless it starts to go wrong.

'Even then, wonderful magical things can and do occur, if we simply choose to let them happen.'

Alfons Bytautas, March 2021