2015, Folly, Egg tempera on antique chestnut, 700 x 700 mm.

Bayliss Brown has exhibited in UK, Italy, USA and China. His portrait Once a loved child was recently shortlisted for the 2019 Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize. In 2016 his HAPTION project (www.haptionproject.com) was nominated for the Deutsche Bank Award: it pioneered a new art form exploiting the sense of touch, for people both sighted and those with visual loss, to experiencing a painting. The project culminated in his London exhibition GESTURE - To touch the untouchable at the Stadium Suite overlooking the Olympic Park to coincide with the 2017 Para-Olympic and World Athletic Championships.  His last supper painting The Weight of Blood was longlisted for the BP National Portrait award (2015) with a solo exhibition in Westminster Cathedral in 2016 (www.alastsupper.com).

Drawing inspiration from historical materials and methods, his research concerns how his practice can be reconciled and belong to 21st century painting but maintain connection to the past. His deep appreciation and understanding of a painting’s anatomy promotes a modus operandi that blurs the boundaries between painting and sculpture; and has led him to put historical paintings literally under the microscope to breathe new life into them for a contemporary audience – Reinterpreting the topography of patina and craquelure by transposing their imagery into new media and works. His enquiry is not as an historian in search of iconography, but as a maker; looking for passages of paint, gesture of line, subtleties of surface that offer possibilities and impetus to the creative process.