Katherine Knight: Pool

August 30–October 27, 2024

Concourse Gallery

Artist’s Statement
I make mixed media collages that range from intimately scaled sketchbooks to wall-sized pieces with figures up to one-third larger than life. In my most recent work, I am bringing the figures off the wall and into 3D installations. I combine the painting and figurative techniques I learned in my formal arts education with skills I picked up working in theater, and also those I learned at home from the many stitchers, knitters, and embroiderers who have mentored me since I was a child.

Playfully skipping between these techniques feels like a small but satisfying act of rebellion against those voices (internal and external) that consider the pursuit of these domestic arts to be a problematic distraction from the pursuit of serious painting. I am actively working to break down the unnecessary barriers I’ve built between these practices, and to make work that utilizes and celebrates all my creative interests and abilities.

My imagery is autobiographical. I am particularly fond of moments that combine the fleeting and bittersweet beauty of daily life with the anxiety of being a 21st century human and parent.

About the Artist
Katherine Knight grew up in Columbia, South Carolina. She received a BA in studio art from Centre College (Danville, Kentucky) and an MFA in painting from American University (Washington, DC). She has completed additional studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Slade School of Fine Art in London.

Knight’s work has been exhibited at the Phillips Collection (Washington, DC), the OU Gallery (Vancouver Island, Canada), Gallaudet University (Washington, DC), Shrine NYC’s virtual Group Show (room 5), and the Indie Grits Film Festival, where her short film Sunday Mornings won the Southern Lens Award.

Knight’s international artist residencies include the OU Gallery (Vancouver Island, Canada) and the Burren College of Art (County Clare, Ireland). She is an associate professor of painting at Montgomery College (Silver Spring, Maryland) and splits her time between Washington, DC and rural Appalachia.

Learn more at www.k2art.net

Image: Katherine Knight, Pool, 2023