How Fine Art Photographer George Byrne Creates Surreal Dreamscapes
Australian-born, Los Angeles-based photographer George Byrne creates large-scale architectural and landscape photographs that are spiritually grounded in modernist painting, exceptional technical achievements, and, most importantly, successful art.
PetaPixel chatted with Byrne to discuss his latest series, Synthetica. Topics include Byrne’s aesthetic style, photographic approach, how Synthetica fits into Byrne’s larger body of work, and how people’s view of his work has changed in the age of artificial intelligence.
![Black and white portrait of a man with short, slightly messy hair and a beard, wearing a plain dark t-shirt. He is sitting and looking directly at the camera with a neutral expression against a simple, light background.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/7.-Kenny.Laubbacher-800x788.jpg)
AI or Not?
Byrne’s images are absolutely not AI-generated, but his style and the subject matter have always teetered on the edge of surrealism and offer a glimpse at what can feel like an unreal world.
Art is always viewed and appreciated within the context of the people viewing it, and that is an ever-shifting viewpoint. It’s interesting to consider how people’s views toward AI, technology, and how art is created can change how Byrne’s work is considered.
![Colorful, modern architectural scene featuring pastel blue, pink, and green walls with minimalistic design elements. A curved green staircase with a small blue door is set against the blue wall, and a palm tree-lined beach and ocean stretch out in the background.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Biloxi-Mississippi-2024-800x643.jpg)
![A nearly empty parking lot with visible yellow parking blocks and a red-painted curb surrounds three tall palm trees. Arid, mountainous terrain stretches out in the background under a clear blue sky with a faint moon visible.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Casino-Nevada-2024-800x643.jpg)
“Looking back, the timing of the Synthetica show was pretty uncanny. There I was in the studio grinding away on a show I was calling Synthetica, and then AI photography lands. I was like, ‘What the hell do we do with this!?'” Byrne tells PetaPixel. “The technology was still in the beta stage, but it completely blew us away. I’ve been tracking it closely ever since, I find it fascinating.”
Byrne could see a place for AI-generated art in his concept stage to help get ideas into some semblance of form faster and with less work. “But using something like Midjourney to come up with photos using prompts is of no interest to me.”
“I really don’t mind if people think my work is AI generated,” he adds. “There are hundreds of hours of work that’s gone into my images that I’d be happy to show people if they were interested. But really, even if I did use AI, I don’t think it matters, and I don’t judge those who use it.”
![A minimalist architectural scene with clean lines and bold colors: white walls, an orange roof edge, a green window panel, and a yellow awning casting a shadow. A gray fence runs across the foreground, with a patch of blue visible on the ground.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Grey-Fence-Assemblage-2024-643x800.jpg)
![A white building with a blue roof edge stands against a clear blue sky. Three tall palm trees are positioned in front of the building, casting elongated shadows on its white facade. Striped patterns are visible on a lower adjoining wall, with mountains in the distant background.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Car-Dealership-Nevada-2024-800x643.jpg)
“All artists have ever done is use the tools in front of them. My understanding of [AI] technology right now is that it’s a brilliant imitator, aggregator and problem solver. But it’s nowhere near able to compete with human motivation because it has no motivation. It has no lifespan, no mortality, no visceral experience — to me this is where art comes from,” the photographer explains. “But get. Back to me in a year or two and maybe all that will change.”
As for AI technology at large, Byrne says he’s ambivalent but worries for people whose jobs will be threatened by it. He also thinks it’s “crazy that 300 nerds in Silicon Valley should get to release a technology that changes the direction of human civilization without any consultation.”
“Did we ask for this?” he adds. “But I guess that’s always how most technological leaps work. They just happen. And we adjust, and life goes on.”
![A red-brick wall with a painted left-turn arrow sign. Two tall palm trees and colorful poles (one blue, one yellow) stand on the sidewalk. In the background, mountains and a clear blue sky. A traffic light with a green signal is visible on the upper left.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Pho-Restaurant-Silver-Lake-2024-800x643.jpg)
![A colorful mural on a building features vertical, arch-like segments in various shades of blue, pink, purple, red, orange, and yellow. The scene includes a clear blue sky, a lone palm tree, empty pavement, and distant mountains in the background.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Rainbow-Wall-2024-800x643.jpg)
Synthetica: Creating Real-World Dreamscapes
While at first blush, Byrne’s latest series, Synthetica, looks very similar to some of his prior work, like Inner Visions in 2021 and Color Field in 2017, among others, the photographer notes that there are significant aesthetic and stylistic differences between them.
Yes, there’s a spiritual thread that connects them all, but Byrne has embraced larger-scale planning and compositing that turn his landscapes into dreamscapes, which the photographer refers to as “Frankenstein landscapes that don’t really exist.”
![A liquor store with a large yellow "LIQUOR" sign stands beside a road in a desert landscape. A Joshua tree is near the entrance, and there are signs for check cashing, bill payments, and money orders. A mural of a woman swimming decorates the side wall.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Liquor-Store-Yucca-Valley-2024-800x643.jpg)
![A tall, light-colored brick wall stands next to a paved road with a red curb. The shadow of a palm tree is cast on the wall. Behind the wall is a vast open field with cows grazing and mountains in the background under a clear blue sky.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Fountain-Ave.-2024-800x800.jpg)
This is a stark change in the process compared to Byrne’s earlier series, which mainly comprised single images subtly changed through post-processing.
There are also conceptual shifts that underlie some of the compositional differences. Byrne’s earlier work was created, at least in part, with social media like Instagram in mind. These images had to work on a smaller scale, so they relied more on large, vibrant color blocks.
In 2021, with Innervisions, Byrne began to shift away from considering Instagram presentation in his process. He cites changes with Instagram as a platform and also the influence of photographer Gregory Crewdson.
![A minimalist urban scene features a pink stucco wall with the shadow of a palm tree, three circular light fixtures, and a geometric yellow roof detail. Adjacent is a white brick wall, a green pole, and clear sky with a distant moon in the background.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Desert-Collage-2024-800x643.jpg)
![A white wall with colorful elements: a pink-bordered window with green shutters, a green-striped vent above, and a vertical yellow stripe on the side. The shadow of a palm tree is cast prominently on the wall.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Assemblage-Miami-2024-643x800.jpg)
“[Crewdson’s] pictures are built to be seen in person, not on screen. He plants detailed symbolism in his images, and there is an epicness that doesn’t translate as well to a 3×3″ backlit screen,” Byrne explains.
Looking closer at the long-term shift in style and approach, Byrne mentions an image from Innervisions called Black Monolith, 2021.
“This was the image that set the table for the work I would go on to produce 2 years later for Synthetica.”
Beyond creating images that aren’t tethered to the need to be understood on a smartphone, there are also narrative differences in Synthetica.
![A minimalist scene of a parking area shows a large, open-fronted cubical structure with pink borders enclosing three palm trees. A white van with an open door is parked to the right, and mountains are visible in the background under a blue sky.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/7-11-Palm-Springs-2024-800x643.jpg)
![A bright yellow delivery truck is parked next to a metal fence painted with green trees, clouds, and flying birds. The truck's back doors are facing the viewer, and part of the painted scenery on the fence is visible. The sky is mostly cloudy.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Main-St.-DTLA-2023-800x800.jpg)
“Synthetica is the first show where I opened the field of view to include scenes from all over America, not just California and Miami. I wanted to use a broad range of subject matter to see if it could be cohesive,” Byrne says. “I felt like this approach would also reflect the American project more broadly, the sewing together of disparate threads into a single, complex entity. The images are about layers, time, and synthesis.”
Looking Closer at the Photographic Process of George Byrne’s Work
For most viewers, it’s easy to appreciate and enjoy Byrne’s work, and there are many different ways to understand each image, as informed by someone’s viewpoint and experience. However, for photographers, Byrne’s work elicits something more: Wonder. How does he do it?
“After years of exhibiting, I see there are two main groups: those who leave their preconceptions of what photography is at the door and just experience the images as if they were paintings, and those who really want to get to the bottom of what’s going on, what’s real and what isn’t, how they’re made, etc.,” Byrne says. “Both are very valid responses.”
![A barefoot man in a black outfit stands in a bright studio, holding a coffee cup. He is surrounded by large, colorful artworks on easels and the floor. The room has a high, white, wooden ceiling with a hanging light, wooden beams, and art supplies neatly arranged.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Shayan.Asgharnia-640x800.jpg)
“Personally, I’m more the latter, when I see a giant Andreas Gursky or Gregory Crewdson photograph in museum, I tend to analyze every inch of it to see if I can work out how it was made, then, after I have failed at that, I take time to experience the work of art. I think most photographers are like that, it’s hard to shake.”
How Byrne makes his photographs changes quite a bit depending on precisely what he’s creating.
There’s the primary shooting stage of the process, during which Byrne heads out and shoots a bunch of new photos, primarily using Pentax 67 medium-format film and lenses ranging between 75 and 300mm.
![A surreal image showing geometric building-like structures in various pastel colors (green, blue, pink, grey, and purple) against a backdrop of a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. A yellow circle resembling a sun is partially visible behind the green structure.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Synthetica-2024-643x800.jpg)
![A minimalist architectural structure with geometric shapes and flat surfaces, painted in blue, green, yellow, and beige tones. The building stands against a serene backdrop of a clear blue sky and the sea, suggesting a coastal location.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Monument-2024-800x643.jpg)
Then he “locks himself in the studio for three to six months and goes to work.”
“The first step is trying to familiarize myself with the new stockpile of images, this can take weeks. Then I look for links, for clues. I read a lot of books and look at a lot of other artists. I try to work out what I’m trying to say and think of fresh ways of approaching what I’m doing. I usually end up with 50-60 ideas or ‘sketches,’ then over weeks and months I whittle it down to 15-20.”
![A minimalist urban scene featuring a white building with geometric shapes, a staircase, a palm tree, and a red silhouette of a walking person. The sky is clear and blue.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Red-Man-Miami-2024-643x800.jpg)
![A pink classic car is parked in front of a beige building with a blue awning. The building has a minimalistic design, and the scene features mountains and palm trees in the background. There is a white, curved arrow painted on the street in the foreground.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Pink-Cadillac-2024-643x800.jpg)
Once Byrne has locked in his ideas and sketches based on the images he’s shot, he re-scans all the selected negatives using a high-powered drum scanner. Then, he works with his studio manager, Danny Duarte, to assemble everything into the final composites.
“Danny and I have been working together on assemblage for more than five years now, and his brilliance with post-production is a big part of why my images look so good; we collaborate well. So that’s how I bake the bread,” Byrne explains.
He usually exhibits 15-20 new photographs every 12-18 months.
![A person stands in the distance on an empty desert road framed by two large mural-covered walls with palm trees on top. The walls depict desert landscapes and part of the word "HOLLYWOOD." The foreground features a colorful, empty basketball court.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Swan-Song-2024-800x800.jpg)
![A tall palm tree stands in front of a mural depicting a forest with multiple tree trunks. In the background, real palm trees rise into the sky. The sidewalk in the foreground is yellow with a small purple post on the left and a red-and-yellow curb on the right.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Mural-Wall-Venice-2024-800x643.jpg)
The Move From Black and White to Color Photography Was Born From Opportunity and Commitment
While the vast majority of Byrne’s portfolio is in color, his very first featured series is comprised of more traditional black and white landscape photographs. It sits in stark contrast to the rest of his work.
“A big part of what led me to where I am is the commercial reality of becoming a full-time artist,” explains Byrne. “When I first started selling the color work I was posting on Instagram in 2014, I was working in a café. I was a seriously broke, struggling musician, and while I loved photography, being an artist was not something I thought was possible.”
![A serene coastal scene with a clear blue sky. A single, tall palm tree stands near a calm ocean. On the left, part of a pale building with a railing and a pink towel draped over the balcony can be seen, and a sailboat is visible on the horizon.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Pink-Towel-Malibu-2024-800x643.jpg)
![A pastel-colored building showcasing pink and white diamond patterns on the wall stands next to a weathered white wooden fence. A palm tree towers behind the building, casting a shadow, with a clear blue sky in the background.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Daytona-Beach-2024-800x643.jpg)
![A minimalist street scene shows a tall, yellow building with a white base and three slender trees rising behind the roof. A single yellow door is inset in the white wall, next to a street light and a small road sign on the sidewalk. .](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Yellow-Wall-2024-643x800.jpg)
However, as interest in Byrne’s work grew, and he was making more sales, he got new opportunities to exhibit his work.
“I quickly dropped everything and became laser-focused on trying to make the most of what was happening,” he recalls.
“I was 37, 38 years old at the time, and aware of how hard it was to get a break. I was very driven.”
The work that helped get Byrne his “break” was his color work, so he redoubled his efforts on the color photography.
![The image shows a bright pink building with the word "Jewelry" in large, bold red letters and dollar signs on both ends. There are colorful bollards in the foreground and two small windows with shutters above. The sky is clear and mountains are in the background.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Jewelry-Panama-City-Beach-2024-800x643.jpg)
![A colorful geometric mural painted on a building with pastel shades of blue, pink, yellow, and green. There is a door with a white awning, a ladder leaning against the wall, and the number "1709" beside the door. A tall palm tree and a clear blue sky are in the background.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/1709-Naud-St.-2024-800x643.jpg)
“I realized if I was going to get this color work to where I wanted it — in museums — I needed to get serious and upscale what I was doing, get bigger cameras and really immerse myself in the craft, I had a lot to learn both technically and theoretically. I needed also to get clear about what my work was about and what I was trying to say — this is when my five years of art school came in handy!”
“For me to get on top of what I was doing with color photography, I needed to clear the decks and focus on it, so my black-and-white work stopped happening.”
However, Byrne says he hopes to get back to it, and is sure he will “in time.”
That said, one image in Synthetica calls back to the original monochromatic landscape work that Byrne shifted away from. The image, Jenny Lake Wyoming, 2024 may be a color photo, but it is very much like the traditional landscape work Byrne was doing when he was struggling to make ends meet as an artist.
![A rugged mountain range with rocky, snow-dusted peaks under a clear sky at dawn or dusk. The moon is faintly visible in the sky, adding to the serene and majestic atmosphere. Sparse patches of vegetation dot the mountainsides.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Jenny-Lake-Wyoming-2024-800x643.jpg)
“The inclusion of the Jenny Lake image was a bit of a mystery to me too, it was one of a whole bunch of landscapes I’d taken on a road trip through Yellowstone National Park in 2022. I just loved these landscapes so much and I was a little frustrated that they didn’t fit in, so I thought ‘f*** it.’ I was so taken by this magnificent mountain, and I couldn’t seem to shake the image. So, I made some changes to it, and decided to exhibit it as a lightbox.”
Byrne says Synthetica was partly about departure, experimentation, and large-scale, high-resolution images, so the image fits.
“Mountains have been such an important feature of my work for years, so it started to make sense that I exhibit and impression of one, unimpeded, as a way of paying homage. In the same way that a musician might give a back-up singer an opportunity to get out front and sing a song. I’m not sure if it worked with the other images but I enjoyed doing it.”
![A green building labeled "Rego Sport Tuning" features colorful geometric murals on its façade. The structure stands on a road with a red curb, overlooking a scenic water body and distant mountains under a clear blue sky. A small moon is visible in the sky.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Rego-Sport-Tuning-2024-800x643.jpg)
![A colorful amusement park ride named "Evolution" stands tall against a backdrop of scenic, hazy mountains. The ride has a prominent vertical structure with a circular component at the bottom and the word "Evolution" displayed at the top. Clear blue sky above.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Evolution-2024-800x643.jpg)
Large-Scale Compositions and Large-Scale Goals
“The works in Synthetica do play on scale more than previous work. There are myriad visual misdirections baked into these images that are key to how you experience them,” Byrne explains.
“In this sense, I’m leaning on one of the core principles of Cubism: sewing together multiple counter-perspectives and presenting them to the viewer as a single cohesive whole. The result is a sort of fission in the mind, whereby the harmony of the composition pushes against the disharmony of the formal arrangement.”
Ultimately, Byrne knows that viewers may find different meanings in his work, no matter his goals.
![A large red wall with a rectangular cut-out in the shape of a U.S. state reveals hills and grassy fields behind it. Two yellow bollards stand in front of the wall on a concrete surface, with a blue sky overhead.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Red-Fence-2024-800x643.jpg)
![A colorful outdoor scene features a modern, artistic structure with tall, segmented blocks in pink and yellow set against pastel walls in light green, blue, and white. A bright red circle in the sky contrasts against the clear blue, adding an abstract element.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/07/Four-Walls-2024-800x643.jpg)
For example, one of his friends recently acquired a print of Black Monolith 2021 because it spoke to her about her perceptions of Los Angeles and her experiences there, in ways Byrne says he never would have considered or thought of.
“That’s the highest praise I could ever hope for! I just hope the work is inspiring to people, that they’re reminded of the magic in the air. I hope my work makes people feel good.”
More from George Byrne is available on his website.
Image credits: All photographs by © George Byrne