Art Hound

These new portraits by Kris Knight have the same ethereal, otherworldly beauty he is known for. I am fascinated by how he treats male beauty indistinguishably from female beauty- the luminosity, flush of cheeks, pouty lips and sparkling eyes.

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In my opinion, it depends. This is not to dodge the question but rather to acknowledge the various roles technique plays in art. Technical ability is valuable when it serves an artistic purpose, to drive home a point or to create an especially visceral experience. But technique for technique’s sake? There is only so far technique alone will take you. Just look at those painters who recreate Renaissance masterpieces in tourist havens.

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Kris Knight’s portraits (via Booooooom) are a host of contradictions: classical yet incendiary, romantic yet sexual, honest yet camp. His figures are doll-like creatures with perfect features, powder-white skin, pouty red lips and sparkling eyes. The idealization of beauty in Kris’s portraits could easily read as saccharin or maudlin but don’t thanks to his very sharp technical abilities which breath life into these perfect, ghostly creatures. Their expressions, the flush of their cheeks, the look in their eyes, all attributable to Knight’s immense talent, take hold of us and compel us to look again. In this case in point, yes, technical ability does matter a great deal.

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Knight is in The Road Less Traveled, running through Jan 17, at Katharine Mulherin Gallery in Toronto.