Cover Story

The Art of Travis Knight

Travis Knight is a representational artist best known for his oil paintings of wildlife and his portraits of the people of the American frontier. He was raised in Bozeman, Montana where he spent countless hours in nature appreciating the creatures of the forest as well as the people who inhabited the land long before him. Both of his parents are fine artists. His late father was a wildlife sculptor, and his mother is an oil painter. This led to lots of time in the family studio looking at pictures of wildlife and learning to draw the animals he observed around the Montana landscape.

Travis attended Watts Atelier in San Diego, California. Watts is modeled after the 19th-century European Ateliers. He studied with award winning instructors and ARC living master Jeffery Watts. A solid foundation in anatomy and drawing combined with painting live models gave Travis the skills he needed to express himself through art.

His love for lighting and motion are reflected in his work. Travis strives to capture the feeling of light as well as the appearance of movement. He uses soft brushwork and energetic palette knife texture to indicate his subject matter. The challenge of creating the illusion of three dimensional life on a two dimensional surface is what motivates Travis in the studio. Breathing life into portraits and making wildlife so real it could walk off the wall and into your home is his objective. Travis currently lives in Bend where he creates custom paintings for his clients and further develops his body of work. travisknightart.com