About the artist - Alfons Bytautas RSA

Bytautas’ work is informed by an acute observation of the natural world in all of its many and varied forms, he does not aim to simply copy nature but seeks to reinvent it through the power of imagination and the unconscious mind. Stylistically placed somewhere between abstraction and figuration, his works evoke a vision of a world magically changed, one which can feel strangely both real and imaginary, where man and nature have been miraculously transformed.

Of Scottish and Lithuanian parentage, Alfons Bytautas was born in the Scottish Borders. His childhood years spent there gave him a love of nature and the landscape. Having studied at Edinburgh College of Art 1972-76 he travelled to Paris in 1983 to study at Atelier 17, the Paris studio of renowned surrealist and abstract expressionist printmaker Stanley William Hayter, which Hayter had established in 1927.

Working at Edinburgh Printmakers from 1979 to 2009 as master printer, he led pioneering research at developing safer and less toxic print techniques. He has directed numerous workshops, demonstrating these methods, throughout the UK and in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Japan.

In 1994 he was elected an Associate Member of the Royal Scottish Academy, becoming a full Academician in 2006. Alfons is currently Principal Technician (Arts) at Northumbria University and is also an acting technician and demonstrator in Fine Art Print.