(Image: "Barnacles, Periwinkles, Seaweed" by John Knight)

John Knight grew up in Indiana and began painting outdoors in farmland and limestone quarries while attending Indiana University. He attended graduate school in Washington, DC, receiving his MFA in Painting in 1998 from American University. That same year he moved to Portland, Maine where he currently lives with his wife, Pam, and his daughter, Chloe.

John was the Maine Arts Commission Visual Arts Fellow for 2007. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Elizabeth Moss Galleries in Falmouth, Maine, and at the Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland, Maine. Nationally, he has been awarded residencies at the Fine Arts Work Center (2003-04), the Millay Colony for the Arts (1999), and the Vermont Studio Center (1994). In Maine, he has been awarded residencies at Great Spruce Head Island, Acadia National Park (2002), and Monhegan Island (Carina House, 2001). His work is currently on display in the US embassy in Timor-Leste as part of the art for embassies program.

When did you first realize that you were going to be an artist and when did you first start making art?
I really fell in love with painting in college at Indiana University. I would paint outdoors in farmland and limestone quarries with friends from the painting program at IU, and this is where I first found meaningful subject matter for my work.

Who or what inspires you?
I'm very inspired by fellow artists in Portland and in Maine. Often they are doing very different work than me. I'm also inspired by nature, and I look for things in the natural world that surprise me.

Is (or was) anyone else in your family in the arts?
My uncle is a professional singer and choral director.

Are you self-trained or did you go to art school?
I went to a state school (IU) with a good art program.

(Image: "Weeds, Blue" by John Knight)

Is the process of creating your art long or short?
It tends to be long and labor intensive, with paintings taking months to complete. However, I do still go outdoors to complete small paintings and drawings within 2 to 5 hours.

Tell us something about your work.
I'm looking for something raw and primordial in nature. I just visited a blueberry barren in Orland Maine to take some pictures. Something about all those erratic boulders scattered over a hill with the sun beating down on them was strange and wonderful. There are obvious contradictions in what I'm documenting, however. I'm looking for this wild, prehistoric landscape that is different than our cultivated yards, parks and gardens. To get to this place, though, I had to drive several hours and park my car on the side of a busy state road. I then walked on a dirt road past people with trucks and plastic buckets harvesting blueberries. I hide the reality of the modern landscape as much as artists hide the process by which they paint a painting, obscuring the underlying drawn lines and incidental marks.

Do you have a subject matter that defines you as an artist?
Landscape and the natural world is the dominant subject I've stuck with.

What makes you stay with a particular subject matter? Why are you drawn to it?
I'm trying to find a way to render natural phenomena or things in the natural world that bowl us over. We need to have our senses heightened and be shocked awake. Nature can still do this even to jaded adults. I've been doing a series of paintings of weed plants for many years because I think we are less familiar with their form than plants like tulips, daffodils, etc. Wildflowers have a strange beauty. They have spines and jagged knife-shaped leaves. They are often huge and elegant, branching up and out like an ornate upside-down chandelier. They also grow in empty fields and places that are not cultivated, and I am drawn to these spaces.

How do you stay motivated?
This is a challenge. It's not a problem if there is momentum in the studio. If I'm involved in some paintings, they pull me into my studio. If I'm not sure of what I want to do, then it's hard to even pick up a brush.

(Image: From the Power in Panels Series by John Knight "David Rees")

What have you been working on lately? Are you experimenting with anything new?
This year has been a year of experimentation. I've done a series of portraits of cartoonists where I reproduce as faithfully as I can the artist's comic characters and text around them. I'm also starting a series of paintings done from sketches and doodles by fellow artists I know. In both series, I become more of an editor than the "writer" or person with the idea/concept. I let go of that need to own intellectual property, and I get to learn about how other artists make marks, lines and shapes.

Has your medium changed from when you first became an artist?
I'm still using oil paint, but I'm also trying out acrylics. I am also using a lot of projections to get images onto canvases that I will then paint over. I have also scanned pencil drawings and edited them in Photoshop, removing lines I felt were unnecessary. I am breaking all the rules I used to have about how artwork should be done.

What advice would you give to an artist just starting out?
Making art is really enjoyable, engaging and it's a sustainable practice, assuming you find subject matter that is meaningful to you. The challenge is carving out enough time to create that practice.

What kind of comment do you despise the most when overheard at one of your openings?
Luckily I haven't overheard anything too nasty. I think no reaction, no comments, or not enough people to create a hum is the worst scenario.

What kind of comment pleases you the most when overheard at one of your openings?
Any sort of comment related to inspiration or enjoyment.

(Image: "Boulders on Beach, Great Spruce Head" by John Knight)

How have you handled the business side of being an artist?
Not very well apparently. Luckily I show in several galleries that deal with the business side of art.

Do you have any outside interests other than art?
I've been enjoying taking walks with my wife and daughter. I also like playing the drums. Who wants to play some music? Call me!

Are you disciplined about your creative process (in other words, do you treat the process like a job, where you keep particular hours in the studio), or are you more spontaneous?
I've been treating days in the studio as a days in the office, schedule-wise, but I've been trying to work furiously when I feel like it. If I'm not feeling inspired, I'll just prepare canvases, clean up, look through pictures, etc.

How would your life change if you were no longer allowed to create art?
I would have to find something else I could really pour energy into.

What is the best part of being a full time, working artist?
There is an amazing freedom in being able to work at my own pace on a project my choosing. Better still, I don't know what the finished product will look like. It may surprise me as much as other people.

(Image: "Mullein in Field with Hay Rolls" by John Knight)

What is the worst part of being a full time, working artist?
Being an artist requires a lot of time, money and resources. When people see prices on artwork in galleries, they may not realize the amount of steps it took to get there. An art studio was rented, an artist took months out of another job to create the work, the artist put away the 9 other pieces of art that didn't pass muster and framed the chosen piece. The gallery advertised the show, paid the gallery rent and utilities that lit the lights that lit up the piece of framed artwork that was carefully hung on the wall with accompanying information.

Do you have any upcoming shows?
I'll be in a show this fall at the Julie Heller Gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Also, I still have work at Elizabeth Moss Galleries in Falmouth from a show of botanical drawings that I was in this summer.

Where can we find your work?
In Maine, Elizabeth Moss Galleries in Falmouth, Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland, and the Courhouse Gallery in Ellsworth. Also the Julie Heller Gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

>link to John Knight's website

- Brenda Bonneville, editor

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