Painting the Moment: Gerard Byrne’s World of Light and Feeling
An intimate conversation with Ireland’s foremost Modern Impressionist — on light, memory, and the power of painting what we feel.
Walk into a painting by Gerard Byrne and you’ll likely feel it before you fully see it. A curve of warm light, a moment of stillness, the shape of a thought just settling into place. For over 35 years, Byrne has painted not just what he sees, but how he feels it — turning the quiet textures of daily life into lasting visual impressions.
Based in Dublin and widely recognized as Ireland’s foremost Modern Impressionist, Byrne’s work spans sweeping plein-air landscapes, meditative still lifes, and emotionally resonant figurative scenes. His paintings are held in the collections of the Irish Government, international embassies, and private collectors around the world. But beyond recognition, Byrne is an artist whose creative process remains deeply personal, intuitive, and honest.
“Even now, I don’t feel I’ve painted my masterpiece yet,” Byrne says. “That keeps me curious.”
For an artist so attuned to emotion and atmosphere, it’s no surprise that his path into painting was anything but conventional.
Learning by Seeing, Painting by Feeling
Byrne’s path to painting defies convention. He left school at fourteen and trained as an electrician. For years, he worked in lighthouses—watching storms move across the sea, light shift through weather, and silence settle into space. It wasn’t until a near-fatal electric shock in his thirties that he made the radical decision to devote his life to art.
“I didn’t go to art school. I made mistakes. But by making them, I found my voice. I wasn’t learning theory—I was learning how to see.”
His approach remains rooted in observation. He often speaks about noticing the smallest shifts—a shoulder leaning, the way morning light touches a kitchen table, the silence between people. These are the moments he paints. Not staged, not perfect—just real, and fleeting.
As Byrne’s relationship with painting deepened, so did the evolution of his subject matter—shaped not by plan, but by time, place, and feeling.
A Practice Born in Seasons—and a Figure That Stayed
Byrne never set out to become a multi-genre artist. “The work came in waves,” he says. “Landscapes were born from travel, still lifes from being home in the winter, and the figures… they just appeared.” Each series reflects a distinct rhythm of living—shaped by place, season, and emotional undercurrent.
His landscapes emerged from years of plein-air painting across Europe and beyond. “You have to work fast,” he explains. “The light changes, the wind moves—you’re responding to nature as it unfolds. It’s physical, immediate.” In contrast, his still lifes began in the quiet of winter, when travel paused and the studio became his world. He turned to intimate compositions of glassware, flowers, and shadows—studies in balance, light, and silence. “They allowed me to slow down and really look.”
But it was a spontaneous moment in 1995 that led to what would become the most enduring and emotionally charged part of his practice. “It was New Year’s Eve in a jazz bar in Paris,” he recalls. “Someone handed me blank music sheets. I started sketching without thinking. That night changed everything.”
The following year, Byrne’s first collection of figurative paintings—directly inspired by that Paris evening—was exhibited in a solo show in Dublin. Two pieces from this debut series were acquired by the founders of the Citadelle Art Museum in Texas, the late Dr. Malouf and Therese Abraham, and remain part of its permanent collection to this day—a testament to the lasting resonance of this pivotal moment in Byrne’s career.
Since then, Byrne’s figurative work has become central to his identity as a painter. These works are intuitive and cinematic, built not from careful planning but from instinct. “I don’t do preliminary sketches. I start with a gesture—a glance, a shoulder, the way a coat folds—and the painting reveals itself.”
Painting people, however, requires a different discipline. “Figures are demanding. The eye knows when something’s off. You have to be precise—but also open. You’re not just painting anatomy. You’re painting presence.”
His figures are often anonymous, caught in ambiguous moments—reading, waiting, thinking. Yet they feel deeply familiar, as if the viewer has arrived mid-scene, just seconds too late to hear what was said.
Whether painting a coastline, a table setting, or a solitary figure, Byrne pursues the same goal: to express the emotional truth of a moment. “It doesn’t matter what I’m painting,” he says. “I’m chasing what it feels like to be there.”
Painting the Feeling of a Place, Not Just the Place
Whether painting a café interior or a coastal cliff, Byrne is less interested in realism than in atmosphere. “I want to paint how it feels to be there,” he says. “The warmth of the sun, the tension in the air, the memory that place gives you. That’s what I’m after.”
Travel has been central to that pursuit. From Cuba to India, Iran to the Australian outback, Byrne has witnessed joy, conflict, community, and solitude—experiences that shape how he sees and paints human beings. “I don’t paint what I see, necessarily. I paint what stayed with me afterward.”
“I’ve seen poverty and weddings. I’ve seen war zones and moments of absurd peace. All of that changes the way you look at people—and it finds its way into the canvas.”
That same attentiveness—seeing connections, creating presence—extends beyond the canvas and into the space where his work lives. In 2017, Gerard and his wife Agata opened the Gerard Byrne Studio in Ranelagh, Dublin. The 1,500-square-foot space serves not just as a gallery, but as a living studio. Visitors can see works in progress, talk to the artist, and witness how a body of work comes together.
“Curating your own space gives you freedom—but also responsibility,” he says. “It’s not just about hanging nice paintings on a wall. It’s about building a visual rhythm, creating conversations between works.”
That philosophy is now coming to New York.
Gerard Byrne at SPACS
SPACS is honored to welcome Gerard Byrne as one of the featured artists in our Opening Exhibition this September. His works—spanning both luminous landscapes and evocative figurative paintings—will be part of the inaugural showcase and will also remain on view as part of SPACS’ permanent collection.
His upcoming presence at SPACS marks not just an exhibition, but a dialogue—a shared belief in the power of art to illuminate the human experience. Byrne’s work reminds us why SPACS exists: to create a space where truth, beauty, and presence converge.
“And in this shared space, each painting becomes not just something we see—but something we feel.”
Website: https://gerardbyrneartist.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gerard_byrne_artist/