ABOUT THE ARTIST
FINE ART PAINTER & PRINTMAKER
Raymond M. Byram was born and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Ray earned his Bachelors of Fine Arts from Indiana University in 1976, and co-founded the universities Fine Art Museum while working on his minor in Art History. Since graduation he has devoted himself to painting and printmaking.
For the last 50 years Ray has maintained a full time career as a free-lance artist working in oils, watercolor and printmaking. He has done extensive commission work for private and corporate collections, and has exhibited his paintings in one-man and group shows throughout the Eastern United States. Ray is an award winning artist who is known for his light filled mountain landscapes and his technical virtuosity.
INSPIRATION & TECHNIQUE
Although Ray has worked across genres and mediums - from abstract and surreal to neo-realism, and from oils and watercolors to etchings, woodcuts, and serigraphy - landscapes in oil have remained Ray’s primary pursuit. His oils are almost exclusively created with small palette knives rather than brushes. Ray finds his inspiration throughout the eastern mountains, particularly in the North Georgia and North Carolina.
Ray’s deep love of nature, especially Appalachian forests, fused with a reverence for Impressionism, shapes a personal approach he calls “tight impressionism.” At first glance Ray’s paintings read as realistic, yet he deliberately adopts the theories of the Impressionists: color and light govern composition, paint application captures fleeting atmosphere, and scenes are distilled to their essential impressions while retaining careful structure and detail. The result is artwork that honors observed reality while expressing the ethereal moods of the natural world.
SERIGRAPHIC PROCESS
In the late 80’s, Byram discovered a medium that would revolutionize his work and his career; serigraphy - silk screen print making. Most serigraphy is basically a stencil process, working directly on the screen, whereas Byram works from the opposite premise by doing a painting first and then hand separation from it using a separate sheet of acetate for each color and red opaquing pen to duplicate every speck of the one color he is picking out.
Unlike most serigraphy, this gives the finished work a much stronger, painterly effect. Thus far, Byram has done from 16 to 22 colors per serigraph. This very detailed separation process takes him up to 200 hours to complete. Each color is individually hand pulled, layering one over another until each color is complete. There is no room for error.
To learn more about Ray’s serigraphic process CLICK HERE.
“There are so many beautiful roads, even the well traveled, where it’s difficult or impossible to just stop in your tracks and take it all in. The winding roads, the light filtering through the trees. That lighting effect is what I’ve been keying on. That sense of ‘realness’ to me, it is a very special spiritual magical thing.”
- Ray Byram
THE ART OF RAYMOND BYRAM ~ A Labor of Love
You can discover addition insights about Ray’s inspiration and process, and see a broad collection of his artwork in this beautiful table top book. To get a sneak peek inside and to purchase the book CLICK HERE.