Full of bravura physicality, Jasper Knight’s paintings confront the viewer with a love for the handmade and the truth to be found in materials. For this artist, the pleasure of paint dictates the flow of line, shape, surface and the seemingly casual insouciance of the drip with the hard-edged, utilitarian geometries he builds from discarded signage and hardware materials. Each image emerges as an icon of contemporary urban life, while allocating the everyday a place of ascendency.
Knight’s personal mix of Modernist formalism with Sydneysider sensibility generates post-photographic pictures of gritty harbour scenes, industrial sites, trucks, cars, and boats painted alla prima - with a direct attack. His skewed compositions are structurally balanced by the elegant use of enamel primary colours, echoing Mondrian, Pop Art and the Sunday comics.
From 2005 to 2010, Jasper was a yearly finalist in the Archibald Prize. In 2008 he won the Mosman Prize, and was short-listed for the Wynne Prize in 2005, 2006, 2011 and 2012. He was the recipient of an Australia Council Emerging and Established New Work Grant, the Freedman Foundation Scholarship and the Rocks Art Prize. He's also been a finalist in the Blake, The ABN-Amro, The Helen Lempriere and the Brett Whiteley Prizes.
Knight’s works are held in numerous public and private collections including the National Gallery of Australia, the New South Wales State Government, New South Wales Regional Galleries, Australian Consulates and Artbank. Carol Schwarzman
