60 Artists Magazine May 2019
as a springboard for my imagination
rather than trying to render it faith-
fully.” It’s vitally important to “reduce
the amount of detail so that the
painting has more impact.”
Toward the end of a painting
session, Knight steps back to appraise
the work. He approaches the final
touches with deliberate patience,
a touch here, an edge softened there,
all in consideration of the visual flow
of the painting. “It’s these little
notations—the horizontals, the
verticals—that give the painting
dynamism,” he says. When pushing
a landscape to the brink of abstrac-
tion, subtle refinements become
vitally important, as there’s scant
detail to hide behind. “The power of
suggestion is something many artists
underutilize,” the artist says.
Finally, he’ll make a few indications
of elements that he’ll add when back
in the studio after the painting has
dried—a mark that will become a
sheep grazing near the shore, for
example, or a few indications of
tree branches. Stepping back froma painting, he declares, “It’s got impact.
It just needs a bit of subtlety now.”
That subtlety is achieved in the
studio, generally after leaving the
paintings to dry over a few months.
Hundreds of paintings are stacked
against the wall, face in, so that when
Knight puts them up on the easel, they
feel fresh again. Sometimes he’ll cut
out little swatches from magazines in
the color and tone he thinks a passage
in the painting needs. It’s a way to test
out ideas before making final adjust-
ments—like an old-school Photoshop.
Knight’s other essential tool is a
saw. He says jokingly, “I always have
a brush in one hand and a saw in the
other.” Using the power tool to crop
a painting is a vital part of his creative
process because sometimes a section
of a painting is more evocative than
the whole. Knight told me that at his
former studio, he’d toss the offcuts in
a garbage bin outside the studio—
until he realized a neighbor was rifling
though the bin and taking the offcuts
home. “They were lined up along her
kitchen wall,” he says with a laugh.ABOVE
Landscape, Blue and Gold
oil on board, 36x60LEFT
The Canola Field
oil on board, 36x40