Kris Knight
Home: Toronto, Ontario
Title: Give me the night
Media: Oil on canvas / huile sur toile
Dimensions: 91 x 76 cm
Website: krisknight.com
Within my professional practice as a visual artist, I have concentrated on creation of thematic series of figurative works that examine performance in relation to the construction, portrayal and boundaries of sexual and asexual identities. The images that I create allude to various expressions of duality, often dealing with opposing notions of hiding and fronting, ambiguity and androgyny, innocence and the erotic.
My practice involves the creation of imaginary and biographical character-based narratives that attempt to find a balance between the dichotomies of pretty and menace, myth and reality. At once attractive as they are disturbing, the characters that I create are heavily influenced by grunge, vampires, zombies, fur trappers, forests, and a sincere love for winter.
Depicting the intimate, but nonetheless foreboding nocturnal rural landscape as a background for my narratives, these often tense portraits of secretive and burned-out youths are sugared with bits of Canadiana, representative of my upbringing.
EDUCATION:
1999-2003 AOCAD (Honours), Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2008 So Long Scarecrow, Spinello Gallery, Miami, USA
2007 How We Quit The Forest, Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects, Toronto
2006 Madame Deficit, Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects, Toronto
2006 Pompadour, Dale Smith Gallery, Ottawa
2005 This Hollow, Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects, Toronto
GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
2008
Characteristics, Galerie Push, Montreal, Sexy Time, Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, USA, Toronto International Art Fair, Toronto, Pulse, Miami with Spinello Gallery, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, 31Grand, New York, USA, The Effect of Your Body, MCV/NYC, Brooklyn, USA, Scope New York with Katharine Mulherin, New York, USA, Scope Basel with Katharine Mulherin, Basel, Switzerland, CIRCA Puerto Rico, with Katharine Mulherin, San Juan, Puerto Rico, NEXT Contemporary Art Fair, Chicago, USA
2007
Littlest Sister, Spinello Gallery, Miami, USA, Aqua Art Fair, Miami, USA, Wanted, Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects, Toronto, National Portrait Competition, The Kingston Prize 2007, Kingston, The Armory Show, with Sandroni Rey Gallery, New York, USA, Other Moments, (Co-Curator) Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, ArtLA Art Fair, Los Angeles, USA (2005, 2006, 2007)
AWARDS:
2008 Ontario Arts Council Emerging Artist Grant
2006 Ontario Arts Council Emerging Artist Grant
2006 Toronto Arts Council Emerging Artist Grant
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Montreal Mirror, “Epic, Outstanding and Creepy, 2008 in Review” Stacy Dewolfe, Dec 25, 2008
artUS Magazine, “Kris Knight” Nadja Sayej, Issue 22, Spring 2008
Eye Weekly, “The Year in Art” David Balzer, December 27, 2007
Xtra Magazine, “The Forest” Sholem Krishtalka, December 20, 2007
Toronto Life Magazine, “Kris Knight at Katharine Mulherin”, David Balzer, December 2007
The/End Magazine, “Kris Knight”, Alex Vaccani Vol 1, No 5, Autumn 2007