Preview: Brendan Lyons – Discreet Discrete Exhibition At Bridewell Studios

Where paint deceives and asserts itself, Brendan Lyons makes the familiar feel unexpectedly alive…

At first glance, Brendan Lyons’ work appears to flirt with the familiar. Tape, plastic, folds, fixings — the everyday language of the studio and the street. But linger for a moment longer and that certainty begins to slip. What looks like one thing quietly reveals itself as another. Paint becomes object, surface becomes substance, and perception is gently but persistently unsettled.

Lyons’ forthcoming exhibition Discreet Discrete at Liverpool Bridewell Studios brings together a body of work that continues his long-standing investigation into paint as a material in its own right. This is not painting as image-making in the conventional sense, but painting as physical event — built, layered, manipulated and coaxed into forms that hover between illusion and fact. His works often resemble things that might be attached, discarded or temporarily held in place, yet are in fact painstakingly constructed entirely from paint.

However, although there is a quiet wit running through Lyons’ practice, a seriousness of intent is also evident. The title Discreet Discrete hints at a double movement: the modesty of things that don’t shout for attention, and the clarity of paint understood as a distinct, tangible matter. These are works that reward close looking. Their power lies less in immediate spectacle than in the slow realisation that what you think you’re seeing is not quite what’s there.

Lyons is a familiar figure within Liverpool’s contemporary art landscape, both as a practitioner and a contributor to its wider conversation. His co-curation of Refractive Pool: Contemporary Painting in Liverpool at the Walker Art Gallery positioned local painting within a broader public context, while his own work has been recognised through selection for the John Moores Painting Prize. That grounding — both locally rooted and outward-looking — is evident here.

The Bridewell Studios provides an apt setting for this exhibition. As a working studio environment as much as a gallery space, it reinforces the sense that these works emerge from sustained engagement with materials rather than polished abstraction. Discreet Discrete doesn’t ask to be decoded so much as experienced — inviting viewers to slow down, question their assumptions, and reconsider what painting can be when it refuses to stay flat.

Brendan Lyons: Discreet Discrete
6 – 22 February 2026 (Thurs & Fri, 12 – 4pm / Sat & Sun, 11am – 5pm)
Bridewell Studios

For more information about Brendan Lyons visit his Instagram @brendanlyonsart.