There Is A Way Out | Tryston Brickles’ Acts of Seeing

In There Is A Way Out, Tryston Brickles offers more than a portrait — he offers a second chance at being seen.

Drawn from real encounters in Cape Town’s Southern Peninsula, the figure at the center of this work: a man quietly sitting at the robots with a box of matches on his lap becomes both subject and mirror. Most of us have passed him by. Few have looked long enough to remember his face.

Brickles refuses that indifference.
Through his vivid use of red, the electric layering of pastel over grayscale, he pulls the viewer into an uncomfortable intimacy. What was once ignored is now undeniable.
The man’s body, outlined in looping neon lines, appears both vulnerable and alive, his silence transformed into visual frequency. The box of matches he holds becomes a small but potent symbol: warmth, survival, a fragile spark of dignity.

As collectors, we’re invited to look beyond composition and colour, to engage in what Brickles calls “the other dimension” of seeing. Here, the work becomes a psychological mirror: the viewer oscillates between confrontation and compassion. It asks, what does it mean to truly see another person — and what happens to us when we do?

Each time Brickles’ work reappears, we’re invited to continue that journey, deeper into the space between the visible and the unseen. His art lingers not only on the wall but in the conscience, reminding us that empathy itself is an act of looking closer.

View more from the artist Tryston Brickles