Selwyn Steyn (b. 1997, South Africa) is an artist and architect based in Paris, whose practice is grounded in an ongoing engagement with spatiality, perception, and the shifting meanings embedded within the built environment. Drawing from his architectural training, he constructs a visual language that moves between observation and abstraction, producing works that function as both document and reflection. His paintings often emerge from intuitive encounters with buildings, infrastructures, and landscapes- captured as fleeting, documentarian snapshots of place and time.
Working primarily in painting, while also experimenting across materials, Steyn approaches his practice as a site of continual testing and learning. His engagement with matter is physical and process-driven, embracing paint, dust, and residue as integral to meaning-making. This material sensitivity parallels his conceptual concerns: how environments hold memory, how space and light evoke emotion, and how built forms act as latent registers of history long after more impermanent traces have disappeared. His compositions often take the form of restrained vignettes in which meaning emerges through atmosphere, fragmentation, and spatial tension.
Steyn understands art as an open-ended and reflective process. As he notes, “art is deployed best as a series of uncertain ruminations rather than directly stated propositions,” foregrounding ambiguity, intuition, and the slow unfolding of perception within his work.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the University of Pretoria, where he graduated as the top design student and received the Pretoria Institute of Architecture Design Award, and a Master’s degree in Architecture from the University of Cape Town (2022). He also completed an Executive Master’s degree in computational design at École des Ponts ParisTech.
Steyn has participated in numerous exhibitions locally and internationally, including with ABSA Gallery, BKHZ, UJ Art Museum, the National Arts Festival, SixtySix London, and Reservoir Projects. In 2023, he presented a solo booth at FNB Art Joburg titled Studies from the In-between. In 2026, he presented a solo booth in the curated Tomorrows/Today section at Investec Cape Town Art Fair.