Painting
Painting
Trussville, AL
www.JamesKnowlesArt.com
In the words of James Knowles:
The interplay between image and abstraction in art has always fascinated me. I get to explore that realm in the paintings I’ve done most recently, using thinned acrylics and allowing them to swirl and run. By controlling the viscosity of the paints, and the slant of the canvas surface, I can get a variety of effects. Some of the paintings are beautiful as is, and in some I like to find ways to weave images or patterns into the swirling colors. I’ve always loved artwork in which images dissolve and re-form, or in which two separate images can occupy the same space.
Recently, I’ve also been working on pixilated portraits They are very time-consuming, but ultimately very satisfying to paint. Chuck Close made this style famous in our time, but I see roots of it going all the way back to mosaics from the ancient world. Even way back then, artists experimented with reducing visual information down to little bits, seeing how much one can simplify an image and have it still be recognizable.
With some images I use text, which I like to do because then painting works on two levels. From a distance you see the face, the cover of the book so to speak. Up close you read the text- presenting the words of this person, or thoughts about them, and giving insight into who this person really is.
Bio
I was born in Birmingham and lived around the South. To keep me from scribbling all over the walls, my parents supplied me with lots of paper and canvas, and I knew it was going to be art from early on. I studied art at The U. of Montevallo, then taught high school art for 34 great years at Hoover H.S. I am now retired and loving it. Acrylic paints are my favorite medium.
