Paintings by Silke Otto-Knapp are being showcased in the exhibition "Land Lies in Water" at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Canada through July 19. During a public opening at the gallery on March 18, the associate professor of painting and drawing at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture will present an artist talk on her work.
The exhibition features about 30 of her recent canvases, ranging from barren ocean seascapes to sharply defined silhouettes of modern dancers.
Originally from Germany, Otto-Knapp has lived and worked in London and Vienna. She received a Master of Fine Arts from Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, and a degree in Cultural Studies from the University of Hildesheim, Germany. She has had solo and group exhibitions at galleries and museums in Los Angeles, Berlin, London, Istanbul and other cities around the world.
Notes the gallery description: "Otto-Knapp is known for her complex, delicate paintings. Working mostly in a black, gray and silver palette, Otto-Knapp's largely monochrome works are studies in the use of light and translucency. Every composition is carefully constructed, and Otto-Knapp's subjects are pioneering women artists, modern dancers, interiors, landscapes, seascapes and avant-garde stage designs. Unlike traditional watercolorists, Otto-Knapp paints on canvas and linen, which allows her to repeatedly wash away and rebuild layers of paint, lending her delicate images a distinctive flatness and luminosity."
