b. 1976 Sydney, Australia
Lives and works in Sydney
With over a 20 year career in the Australian art scene, Jasper Knight defies ‘bold and cold’ associations of the industrial. Known for his bright, bold use of primary colour and strong focus on industrial subject matter and materials. His surfaces are often collaged and glossy, providing Knight’s work with lustrous, immersive backdrops upon which line and form are accentuated. Dripping and melting, enamel, gloss acrylic and gesso create textural depth and warmth. Such material transformations naturally lend themselves to perceptions of the industrial landscape itself. Knight’s paintings challenge austere readings of the industrial landscape and replace them with something deeper: living infrastructures, the bones upon which contemporary life is fleshed. Recently Knight has turned to figurative work using a more reduced palette to create portraits drawing on art history, film and television.
From 2005-2013 Jasper’s work was a finalist in the Archibald prize eight times. He has been a finalist in the Wynne Prize four times, the Sulman prize three times and the Moran prize twice. He was awarded an Australia Council Emerging and Established New Work grant, the Freedman Foundation Scholarship and the Rocks Art Prize. He has also been a finalist in the Blake Prize, The ABN-Amro Prize, The Helen Lempriere, The Brett Whiteley Prize and was the 2008 winner of The Mosman Art Prize. In 2008 he opened Chalk Horse gallery with the generous support of the Australia Council and the City of Sydney. Jasper has shows in 2024 in Sydney, Melbourne, Taipei and Singapore. His work is in almost all NSW regional gallery collections, Artbank and the National Gallery of Australia and the National portrait gallery. His first major book is due next year published by Thames and Hudson.
