Jasper Knight grew up by the water’s edge in Sydney where palm trees were a common sight. Being around these trees from an early age made an impression that has crept back into his consciousness, almost surreptitiously.
For the past twenty-four months, Knight has turned his attention to the ubiquitous palm tree. The ampleness of these trees became more and more apparent to him, and in 2022, Fireworks, his first series appeared, to great acclaim. Like his earlier industrial paintings, he insists that in spite of the very different subject, surface remains of great importance.
Dusk to Dawn is a continuation of the palm tree paintings of the Fireworks exhibitions in 2022, twenty-five all blue paintings, and of the hugely successful Sydney Contemporary show, The Coral Coast, in September this year, where the vibrant yellow hues recall Fiji’s Coral Coast.
Jasper Knight, Miracle Goodnight, 2023, gloss acrylic and gesso on canvas, 183 x 213cm. Courtesy the artist and Linton & Kay Galleries, Western Australia
In Dusk to Dawn, native Fijian palms, as well as the notion of Perth’s avenues of Washington palms, take centre stage, giving dramatic topography to its flat riverside precincts. The title harks back to the 1996 horror film by Tarantino and also references David Bowie’s Golden Years with the use of gold a nice idea, one that could also evoke the best years of art work practice and, by extension, of life.
Now Knight places his subjects into two categories: the blues of dusk and the ochres, and golden yellows to reds, of daybreak. He has taken what he calls the “best bits” of the earlier works, put them together and added this new red-orange sunburst element, with a strong bias to the daybreak palettes.
Knight’s bold brushstrokes, using just his chosen colour along with white, push the paintings into abstraction. The paint has to work harder and is unforgiving. As always, the works are painted quickly, needing confidence and surety: the ensuing spontaneity is the artist’s signature.
After researching many of the botanical stories behind these trees, so frequently unnoticed in their urban settings, Knight has moved on to explore changes in palette that resonate with his approach to the Perth works. “These paintings definitely evolved as fabrications from my imagination, not just from specific places but from everywhere; they are realistic but they don’t have to be realistic. Painting a specific set of trees has encouraged me to be experimental. They are this idea of the hidden tree: mostly unseen, but once noticed and remembered, it’s impossible to ‘unsee’ them.”
The Linton & Kay exhibition features twenty-one paintings, the entire stock of the palm tree oeuvre, from the modest 80 x 60cm works such as Mother I missed the plane, right up to the major 182 x 213cm works including the blue palette of Miracle Goodnight and the ochres of Untitled (152 x 137cm).
“The Dusk to Dawn paintings are some of the freest I’ve done,” says Knight, “definitely the most enjoyable as they are so free. The ochre works are the only ones I’ve ever done in this palette, and showing them all together in Perth is almost like wrapping the series in a bow – a really nice place to leave it.”
Linton & Kay Galleries, Subiaco
11 December 2023 to 31 January 2024
Western Australia
