Teasel and Fields, 2009, oil on canvas, 60 x 60
John Knight bio resume
My current paintings are centered around common plants and their environments. They also describe a dialog between the sky and the earth.
As the plants send out flowers and shoots, growing higher, they become the go-between connecting the earth and sky, and the plants themselves intermingle with their surroundings. I have let these often small weeds become monumental in my paintings, running the whole vertical length of my canvases, uniting solid ground below with atmosphere above. I have encountered these plants in fields, beaches or rocky shores here in Southern Maine.
On an aesthetic level, I notice the color and shape of radiating petals on a flower with a specific number and formation, but observing the whole plant closely and identifying it through books opens up other meanings relating to its use as food, medicine or textile/building material. I welcome the diversity of tenacious weeds that grow without conscious planting or landscaping. Their suprises contrast with gridded plots of daffodils or tulips, or for that matter vast, uniform orchards or crop fields that fill abundant but homogenous produce bins in supermarkets across the country.
In my studio, forms of clouds, stones, plants, rolls of hay, or bodies of both land and water are malleable and change to fit my compositions. However, the subjects and their environments that I create are always informed by my sense of the different places I have lived or spent time.A century plant I painted in New Mexico relates to a sow-thistle I see and paint in Maine.
A tower of limestone blocks I painted in a quarry in Indiana relates to natural rock formations I saw and painted in New Mexico and to the shape of the rocky coast of Southern Maine. The name and identity of the forms change, but the scale and central placement of single, iconic, non-human subjects remains consistent in my work.
Back in my studio I try to generate the space I experienced standing or painting with my easel planted in a large outdoor space with the ground sweeping up under my feet and clouds rushing overhead. I try to get back to experiences I have had walking out into certain outdoor spaces and being struck by a feeling of harmony in the forms surrounding me.
EDUCATION:
M.F.A. 1998 Painting, American University
B.F.A. 1994 Painting, Indiana University
OTHER EDUCATION:
1997 - Accademia Di Belle Arte, Perugia, Italy
1992 - Indiana University overseas summer study program in
Florence, Italy.
EXHIBITIONS AND GALLERY REPRESENTATION
* = solo exhibition
2007 - * John Knight: Maine Arts Commission 2007 Fellow in Visual Arts
Maine State House, Augusta, Maine
2007 - Various Views of Nature
Caldbeck Gallery, Rockland, Maine
2006 - The Carina House Residency: A Gift of Monhegan
Elan Fine Arts, Rockport, Maine
2005 - * Land and Soul
The Clown Gallery, Portland, Maine
2004 - * Variations on a Thistle
The Via Group, Portland, Maine
2004 - What's the Story? Narrative Art from the Watkins Collection
Watkins Gallery, American University, Washington D.C.
2004 - 2003-2004 Fine Arts Work Center Visual Fellows
Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, New York, New York
2004 - Future Masters
Cape Museum of Fine Arts, Dennis, Massachusetts
2004 - Landscapes and Plants
Hudson D. Walker Gallery, The Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, Massachuesetts
2003 Portland Museum of Art Biennial, Portland, Maine
(juried by Lois Dodd, Harry Philbrick and Mary Ryan)
2002-2005 - Maine College of Art Auction, Institute of Contemporary Art
Maine College of Art, Portland, Maine (exhibit and silent auction to fund MECA scholarships)
2002 - * Weeds
Aucocisco Gallery, Portland, Maine
2000 - New Work by John Knight, Jenny Moore, and Gloria Steiger
The Gallery at 108 High Street, Portland, Maine
1999 - * Growing: Drawings and Prints by John Knight
Lewis Gallery, Portland Public Library,
Portland, Maine
1998 - * John Knight - Paintings, Prints, and Drawings
The Dumbarton Concert Gallery, Washington D.C.
1998 - Point of Departure: An exhibition of thesis works by American University MFA Candidates
WPA/Corcoran Projectspace, Washington, D.C.
1998 - One Leg Up: Artwork by Tom Bunnell, John Knight, and Aaron Yassin
Watkins Gallery, American University, Washington, D.C.
1996 - New Work from the Gila: Paintings and Drawings by Chad Colby, John Knight, and Chris Sheek
Broadway Gallery, Silver City, New Mexico
BIBLIOGRAPHY: (click on links to view articles)
Busa, Christopher, "Visual Artists in Winter Residence" Provincetown Arts, Vol. 18, annual issue 2004/05, 60-61
Harrison, Sue, "Slipping Through the Cracks"
Provincetown Banner, February 26, 2004, cover page,
Arts and Entertainment
Knowles, Maggie, "Best Weeds in Town"
The Portland Phoenix, March 11-17, 2005, 14
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