Brendan Neiland

(b. 1941)
Brendan Neiland is an English painter celebrated for his luminous depictions of cities seen through reflected surfaces. Using glass, aluminium, steel, and marble as his visual filters, Neiland transforms architectural grids into shimmering patterns of ripples, highlights, and shifting light. His hyper-realist technique reimagines the modern world—sometimes through the reflections of cars—capturing movement, activity, and the pulse of urban life.
As Neiland himself has said: “So much of the city is observed through reflection. In a sense, it is far more real than the buildings themselves… It helps to give the feeling of movement, activity, and life of the city. It gives me the opportunity to structure my paintings using the grids of buildings within which to develop the ripples and highlights of the reflections.”