Ken Knight - Southern Journeys

Ken KnightSouthern Journeys

Illustrated front cover: Afternoon Light, Glenorchy Oil on Board, 38 x 89 cm Lion Rock and Piha Oil on board, 85 x 100 cm

Southern Journeys Paintings by

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 famous impressionists including Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts. His iconic landscapes are inspired by the azure blue of Sydney harbour, the sweeping drama of the Kakadu, the frosty grandeur of the Snowy Mountains and the vast open stretches of land and sea that surround him.

“My paintings are all about simplifying the landscape,” he says. “I don’t like to tell the whole story, otherwise it loses its 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.

Over the years Knight has travelled and painted extensively around New Zealand. He is especially inspired by the coastlines in the North and the majestic mountains in the South.

Ken Knight

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.

In February 2020, Ken and his wife went travelling through a less populated terrain, Antarctica. They spent two weeks moving around on a ship with his easel sitting neatly on the bow. A concern for climate change is at the forefront of Ken’s work. Upon his return from Antarctica, Ken spoke of feeling overwhelmed to be in a place so untouched yet so threatened.

“I found it particularly relevant to paint a continent that is being threatened by climate change. The landscape appears to be on a knifes edge. Rising atmospheric temperature in the Antarctic continent is the most obvious testament to global warming. At a time when so much of the planet is being threatened by uncertainty, unwelcome human development, and global warming, I found it overwhelming to be in one of the most remarkable and inspiring landscapes I have had the privilege to visit.”

Knight’s work has been purchased for numerous private and public collections in Australia, England, Italy, America, Mexico, South Africa, and Europe, including those of 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.