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Statement:
Luke Knight seeks to capture moments glimpsed. His canvases are charged with motion, as he lingers on transitionary memories: a sunset flashing through surf, a verdant landscape slipping by a car window. A keen surfer, Knight spends much of his time observing light and ocean. Whilst floating on the swell, waiting for the next wave, he is exposed to vacillation. It is not often that we sit in one place and watch the light change, but this is a by-product of surfing. Knight takes notice of the sea and tide, observing alterations on an hourly, daily, and seasonal basis. Visiting the same beaches throughout the year, he will pay attention to the movement of sandbanks due to winter storms, the gradual warming of the water in April, the dramatic lightshows of October sunrises and sunsets.
Knight enjoys the conversation between memory and perception. When we remember, we recall a memory of the memory, rather than the original event. In this way, although his paintings may start off in response to a specific photograph he has taken of sea or sky, it will invariably develop its own visual language, evolving over time to become something entirely its own. His use of colour also references ideas of perception. Instead of using traditional greens and blues informed by our own schemas of understanding, Knight pays attention to the effects of light on colour. He is often inspired by dawn and dusk where the level of the light creates the most beautiful spectrum of hues: coral pinks, soft lilacs, glowing oranges.
The painting develops through an immediate conversation with the materials. Knight enjoys building up a surface with aggregates such as marble dust, contrasting texture with pared back areas. His consideration of balance creates work with seductive atmospheric perspective. The paintings become as much about change as the landscape itself, as they too evolve over time. They grow and erode; they swell and are excavated; the tides of washes and glazes come in and out over them. There is a contrast between the bulbous build-up of the paint, noticed on the edges of his pieces, and the seamless, almost photographic blur of his surfaces. The slickness seduces the viewer and, on closer inspection, an entirely different painting reveals itself: one of industry and journey, where the viewer glimpses the paintings sedimentary history.
Kate Reeve-Edwards
Much of the inspiration for my work comes from transitory moments rushing to get into the surf at the end of the day or early in the morning; the smell, the clarity and calm, I find when I am immersed in it. My paintings are about these experiences, about the vitality of the sea or of the landscape; they are, fleeting impressions, revisited, layered and compressed they are about remembering in paint.
Selected Exhibitions:
Winter's Choice: Oliver Contemporary, London November 2022
Beyond the Surface: Jupiter Gallery, Newlyn October 2022
Rhizome:Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, June 2022
Featured Artist: Whitewater Contemporary June 2022
Auction Collective Studio Sale February 2022
Combat Stress Postcard Auction: October 2021
Featured Artist: Whitewater Contemporary: April 2021
Wild Seas and Winter Skies, Livingstone Gallery St Ives 2020
Royal Society of Marine Artists Open Exhibition, Mall Galleries London 2020.
Auction Collective Autumn Auction 2020
Whitewater Summer Exhibition 2020
Featured Artist: Whitewater Gallery, May 2020
Barcelona International Gallery Awards 1st Place 2019
From this Land, Thrown Contemporary, Highgate 2019
St Ives Society of Artist Christmas Open Exhibition 2018
166 RWA Open Exhibition, 2018
Cornish Maid, Mawnan Smith, 2015
Fowey River Gallery, 2013
Beside the Wave, Falmouth, 2012
Style 88, Paintworks Bristol; 2007
The Awning Project, Spyglass Gallery Bristol 2007
The Olive Shed, Bristol 2006
The Small Gallery, Hereford 2006
Centerspace Summer Show, Bristol 2005
Adam Gallery, Penarth 2003
Howard Gardens Summer Show, Cardiff; 2003
Hans Brinker Trophy Prize Exhibition, Amsterdam 2002
L’ecole de Beaux Art, Nantes 2002