54 Artists MagazineMay 2019
P
ick any road in the
Australian bush, and
acclaimed artist Ken
Knight has likely driven
it. “I know most roads
in Australia, I reckon,”
he says. “I’m on the road three to four
months a year. That’s where I get all
my primary material. I’ll stay in a pub
or hotel and travel in a different direc-
tion to paint each day.”
Since his first exhibition in 1979,
Knight has traveled the globe to paint
and study—Amsterdam, Paris, Egypt,
London, Iran, Alaska, Kashmir, to
name just a few locations. Next year,
he’ll embark on his most ambitious
trip to date: to Antarctica to paint ice-
bergs, glaciers and coastal mountains.ENDLESS PAINTING
MATERIAL
As stimulating as the international
trips are, though, Knight has nevertired of painting the quiet, rural
landscapes of the Australian bush
that’s inextricably bound up in the
country’s identity. With a population
concentrated primarily in coastal cit-
ies and suburbs, the bush is valued as
a place to find solitude and renewal. It
encompasses a wide variety of land-
scapes—from dense eucalyptus
forests to rolling pastureland peopled
by herds of sheep and pockmarked by
hidden water holes. It’s a landscape of
lonely roads, remote national parks
and blistering heat.
For Knight, it’s also a source of
endless painting material. His four-
wheel drive truck serves as a mobile
studio, equipped with everything he
needs for long days in the field—linen
panels stored in a flat file; a French
box easel; a collection of brushes, pal-
ette knives, paint trowels; a saw for
cutting down panels if the need
arises; and a cooler filled with food.Countless trips into the bush have
inured him to the blazing summer
heat. Knight paints large-scale oil
paintings on-site, repeating a motif
until he has exhausted all possibili-
ties. He works quickly, painting from
the shoulder with improvisational
bravura. After a 10-day trip, he’ll head
home with upwards of 50 paintings.
Nestled in a semi-tropical garden,
Knight’s home and studio is situated
on a 4-acre parcel on the east coast,
about one hour north of Sydney.
Once back in his studio, he’ll lay the
paintings on the floor for appraisal.
“Three or four will really stand out,”
he says, “and maybe 10 will have
potential.” The rest he’ll add to the
stacks of paintings propped up along
the wall, some to be reworked later,
others destined for the burn pile.
Time in the studio, for Knight, is of
equal importance to time in the field.
“Plein air painting is about creativity,”Red Gums, Western District
oil on board, 25x40