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| ARTIST: | Ken Knight |
| DATES: | Australian b. 1956 |
| TITLE: | The Marina, Lake Wanaka |
| MEDIUM: | Oil on board |
| SIZE: | 50 x 35 cm |
| REMARKS: | Signed |
| $NZ: | Category D |
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Ken KNIGHT Australian b. 1956 Ken Knight was born in Sydney in 1956. He is one of Australia’s leading plein-air painters and as such he follows a rich lineage of Australia’s most famous impressionists including Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts. Many of his iconic landscapes are set in New Zealand. Ken's works are inspired by such things as Auckland's changeable weather, the beauty and deep colours of lakes such as Wakatipu and Wanaka, the rugged yet majestic cliffs of Rangitikei and the frosty grandeur of our mountains such as Mt. Sefton. “My paintings are all about simplifying the landscape” he says. “I don’t like to tell the whole story, otherwise it loses it’s mystery. By reducing the landscape and abstracting elements from it, I enable the viewers to make an interpretation of the image for themselves.” Knight concedes his work is in the style of the Heidelberg School of which Streeton was a leading member. He spends approximately four months of the year travelling, sketching and painting as he goes. Several sketches are often made of a scene before the final work is executed; a process he says is essential in “freeing up” the work. The controlled exaggeration of colour in the landscape is fundamentally important to his technique. Heavy impasto applied with a palette knife and energetic brushwork creates a painting that offers something a little different each time it is viewed. After each expedition he takes the paintings back to his studio, where he evaluates and appraises them, often making subtle changes to improve the structure of the finished painting. Knight recently spent several weeks travelling around New Zealand’s North Island. “I was especially inspired by the West Coast and it’s primeval grandeur”. This occasion, during which he worked on location in places as diverse as Paritai Drive, Piha, The Bay of Islands and Turangi, followed by a weekend at Solitaire Lodge to indulge in his favourite sport of trout fishing, led to this evocative collection of atmospheric paintings. Knight’s work is represented in private and corporate collections in Australia, England, Italy, America, Mexico, South Africa and Europe. He has been awarded the Windsor and Newton Australian Art Award, 1994 and the Royal Arts Society Spring Exhibition, 1998, among many other awards. In February 2003 Ken’s first London exhibition was held at W H Patterson Gallery in Albermarle Street, Mayfair. His work has been purchased for a number of collections, including The Castlemaine Regional Art Gallery and Historical Museum, IBM, The Commonwealth Bank, Johnson & Johnson, Parliament House in Brisbane, The Royal Grocers Hall, London and the collection of The Archbishop of New York. |
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| Arrowtown Gallery
Ltd 2/40 - 44 Buckingham Street, Arrowtown 9302 P O Box 96 Arrowtown 9351, New Zealand Phone: +64 3 442 1755 |
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