David Knuckey
Fragments of banal images and graphic elements are dislocated from their original contexts.
David Knuckey’s process and material-oriented practice explores how abstraction disrupts our visual associations, leaving us in free-fall. Blurring the lines between abstraction and figuration, Knuckey’s works do not arise out of a preconceived image or goal. Instead, his artworks often take aspects of various forms and images drawn mainly from pop culture and various sub-cultures, merging, and transforming into new abstract forms. Mostly, Knuckey uses fragments of banal images and graphic elements, dislocating them from their contexts reducing their symbolic cues by simplifying them. The only remaining thread linking them to their origin could be in the title of the work, a small indentation, or simply a figment of our imaginations in our attempts to rationalise. Working in diverse media, from acrylic paint to wax, resin, wood, plaster and plastics, his works are created in series. In this process of repetition, he searches for the artwork, unsure about its outcome, his recurring actions determine the final form.
They are at once silent and overflowing with possible symbolic interpretation.
What interests me above all, is blurring the line between abstraction and figuration.
Knuckey’s works also explore the potential of materials, employing a material’s inherent properties to further abstract. In works such as BaGUrFa2e (2017), a cardboard frame provides a structure for layering of cotton. Imitation leather (‘pleather’ or ‘leatherette’) is stretched across the structure and then dipped in resin. Inspired by the use of shaped canvases by geometric abstract artists and minimalists of the 1960s and 1970s, Knuckey often leaves gaps in his frames, creating forms with holes and allowing depressions to affect the surface of his works. As the resin dries, it cracks and warps, creating bubbles and variation across sculpture, a process partially guided by Knuckey as he seeks to draw out his form. The resulting works draw on fetish imagery using leather and latex-effect resin, with sensual curves and creases contrasting starkly with their almost industrial shapes. Often installed leaning against the wall or lying down, Knuckey’s works such as ΛIΛ III (2023), comprised of wood, canvas, resin, and acrylic, resemble pieces of a construction site. And yet, could they be spelling out a message, their industrial forms merely a foil to mask a hidden meaning in their arrangement? It is this that encapsulates Knuckey’s works. They are at once silent and overflowing with symbolic interpretation, or the potential for it. We cannot be sure. The power of Knuckey’s works rests in their ability to hold your attention and unravel your preconceived impressions, leaving you completely free to run wild with associations, only to back track and begin questioning all over again.
Text by Constance Chester
What drives me first and foremost is continuity, how one piece irremediably influences the next.
Biography David Knuckey
born 1985 in Geneva, Switzerland
Education
2017 Master of Arts in Fine Arts, Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), Zurich
2011 Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts, Haute Ecole d’art et de design (HEAD), Geneva
Exhibition (selection)
2023
Window Grey, CAN, Centre d’art Neuchâtel, Switzerland
2022
(Because You) Play With Me Kunsthalle 8000, Wädenswil, Zurich, Switzerland
2021
Werkschau, Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, Switzerland
Musk, Topic, Geneva, Switzerland (Solo)
Mawn, Salle Crosnier, Geneva, Switzerland (Solo)
∞, Circuit, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Lausanne, Switzerland
2020
Sag, Hit, Geneva, Switzerland (Solo)
Bourses B L C G, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland
L., Lokal-int, Biel, Switzerland (Solo)
Artmangeddon, espace libre Visarte, Biel, Switzerland
2019
Swiss Art Awards, Basel, Switzerland
2018
Slot, Duplex, Geneva, Switzerland (Solo)
Bourses B L C G, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland
The Second City, Destiny‘s Atelier, Oslo, Norway (Solo)
2017
Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather, Freymond-Guth Fine Arts, Basel, Switzerland
Residencies & grants
2022 Production Grant Covid-19, Zurich, Switzerland
2021 Werkbeitrag, Kanton Zurich, Switzerland
2021 Production Grant Covid-19, Zurich, Switzerland
2020 Production Grant, FCAC, Geneva, Switzerland
2019 Swiss Art Award, Switzerland
2019-20 Studio Grant Migros Herdern, Zurich, Switzerland
2016-19 Studio Grant, Geneva, Switzerland
Works by David Knuckey
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Untitled (Double Lane)
2016 / Plaster, resin, cardboard / each 195 x 30 x 3 cm / 76.8 x 11.8 x 1.2 in
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Foul
2020 / Leatherette on frames and talc / each 240 x 22 x 6 cm / 94.5 x 8.7 x 2.4 in
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Untitled (B.F Warped)
2021 / Leatherette, resin, wooden frames / each 280 x 10 x 40 cm / 110.2 x 3.9 x 15.7 in
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GE 13812, III
2020 / Acrylic on canvas / 30 x 140 cm / 11.8 x 55.1 in
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1-900-999-DUDE, IV
2020 / Acrylic on canvas / 30 x 140 cm / 11.8 x 55.1 in
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BaGUrFa2e
2017 / Leatherette, resin, cardboard, cotton, plastic / each 150 x 140 x 8 cm / 59.1 x 55.1 x 3.1 in
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ΛIΛ III
2023 / Wood, canvas, resin, acrylic / Dimensions variable
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BaGUrFa2e (blue)
2023 / Frame, leatherette, resin, cardboard, cotton, plastic / each 160 x 140 x 8 cm / 63.0 x 55.1 x 3.1 in
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Untitled
2020 / Frame, cardboard, cotton, leatherette, resin, plastic / 200 x 140 cm / 78.7 x 55.1 in
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Flag
2021 / Leatherette, wooden frames / each 240 x 10 x 6 cm / 94.5 x 3.9 x 2.4 in
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Crest
2016 / Leatherette, resin, cardboard, cotton / 265 x 65 x 7 cm / 104.3 x 25.6 x 2.8 in
Cahier d'Artiste by David Knuckey
SOUP/SUP, 240 x 320 mm, 124 pages (published by Jungle Books)
David Knuckey studied at the Haute école d’art et de design Genève and at Zurich University of the Arts. His work consists mainly of paintings and sculptures, which he conceives as series. He uses diverse materials, including acrylic paints, wax, resin, PU foam, wood and plaster. His artistic work strives to blur the boundary between abstraction and representation. Knuckey makes use of images and everyday objects, which he then transforms. Reduced to their essence, the resulting objects and images often seem to have lost their original purpose.
His Cahier d’Artiste, entitled “SOUP/SUP”, presents a diverse collection of photos from his exhibits and his studio as well as sketches and notes. The images from his personal archive enter into dialogue with one other in the publication, flowing from one page into the next and reappearing surprisingly later. The content, compact and dense, is counterbalanced by blank pages. The format and design lend the book a magazine-like quality that conveys a certain ease, lightness and spontaneity. The content focuses on Knuckey’s artistic practice, his work process (with sketches and notes) and his work in the studio.
The text for David Knuckey’s Cahier d’Artiste was written by curator Judith Welter (Zurich). Welter studied art history, Spanish literature and religious studies at the University of Bern. She completed her doctoral dissertation in 2014 on the role of rumours and anecdotes in contemporary art. From 2015 to 2021, she was the Director of the Kunsthaus Glarus. From 2004 to 2015, she worked for the Migros Museum of Contemporary Art in Zurich, where she was the Collections Curator from 2012 on. Since 2016, she teaches at various universities and is the Director of Studies in the Master of Fine Arts programme at Zurich University of the Arts.
David Knuckey is part of the Cahiers d'Artistes selection. Eight artists were chosen by a jury to realize an artist book with the support of Pro Helvetia. Their artistic practice is presented online on TheArtists.net.
With the Cahiers d'Artistes, Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia enables artists from Switzerland to have their first publication and offers art professionals and the interested public a window to current trends in the Swiss art scene. For the first time, the Cahiers d'Artistes are not pure monographs, but artist books designed and produced by graphic designers Samuel Bänziger, Rosario Florio, and Larissa Kasper (Jungle Books) in close collaboration with the artists. More about the Cahiers d'Artistes on Pro Helvetia's website.
