Revealing the Theatricality of Painting: A Review of Silke Otto-Knapp at the Renaissance Society
"In Silke Otto-Knapp’s exhibition “In the Waiting Room” at the Renaissance Society, five paintings are hung individually on low, temporary walls and a single painting stands on its own in the center of the room, its panels hinged and bent to form a kind of folding screen. Each painting contains scenes of isolated or grouped human figures, some dominated by trees, branches and foliage that stretch the length of the canvas and fill their edges. Some figures stand in groups or perform solitary isolated actions throughout the canvas. Although she has made each work with only black pigment, the paintings contain a surprising spectrum of elusive neutral values that are nearly incandescent. By building up layers and layers of thin watercolor while tilting the canvas in subtle angles and wiping away and brandishing the surface as it dries, Otto-Knapp is able to create rich surfaces that give her subjects an enigmatic softness. Because of this, her work at first glance looks more like heavily worked graphite drawings than paintings made with a brush. The subjects overall are flat and illustrative, with little definition to their form but the dense, nearly imperceivable layers of thin pigment make their edges irresolute and ethereal. Even large bodies of empty space in many of the works appear to vibrate with undulating frequencies of subtle painterly texture.Otto-Knapp’s subjects, whether human or flora, dance easily between light and shadow. Some are resolute and assertive, while others dance in and out of darkness, sinking into other forms or melding with the landscape. In two paintings, “Group (Reaching)” and “Group (Moving),” dark charcoal gray figures stand in a dense crowd in an empty pale (almost silver) background, each performing different gestures, facing the viewer or in profile. Where the figures collide and overlap, there are subtle shifts in value, as if we are looking down onto a lightbox stacked with layers of characters and props cut from wax paper, the soft light projecting through and describing their form and weight."— Cody Tumblin, Mar. 11, 2020
This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on the New City Art website.
Read more about Silke Otto-Knapp.
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