Bio:
Becky Knold is a process and materials-driven artist who thrives on experimentation, imagination, and discovery. She has lived and worked in the Pacific Northwest for the majority of her 75 years. Her personal history includes a 25-year career in teaching, a BA in Asian Studies from the University of Wisconsin, and an MA in Education from Seattle Pacific University. Since retirement, she has enthusiastically embraced opportunities to pursue a lifelong interest in Art. She took several art classes at The Evergreen State College, graduated from the Seattle Artist Trust’s EDGE Program, and continues to be actively involved in several arts organizations.
Knold’s artwork has been exhibited in galleries and educational settings throughout the Pacific Northwest, including Lower Columbia College, Pierce College, Tacoma Community College, B2 Gallery (Tacoma), Ryan James Fine Art (Kirkland), Vashon Center for the Arts, and the WA Department of Ecology. Additionally, UW Medicine has purchased her work for their new clinic in Olympia, and The WA State Arts Commission (in conjunction with The Evergreen State College) has a permanently installed a collection of her paintings at the College campus in Olympia, Washington.
Artist Statement:
Birds in Eden (flying, fluttering, flitting, and perching) is a painting done after reflection upon a visit to see an exhibition of Joan Mitchell’s paintings in NYC. I was inspired by her energetic, expressive, and colorful paintings. Her loose brushwork, her interpretation of natural and emotional states, and the unrestrained freedom of movement in her paintings spoke to me personally. In my own painting here, Birds in Eden…, I wanted to capture the energy, motion, and lightness of her expression. “Copying” another artist is a concept that makes no sense to me – but trying to grasp the essence of how that artist saw things, and to share in that perception and recycle it through my own lens of experience and personal style – is what I was trying to do when putting strokes down for this painting. I like to think I was “channeling” Joan Mitchell through my own self while painting Birds in Eden (flying, fluttering, flitting, and perching).
Acrylic paint seemed well-suited to the process of making this painting since I wanted to work quickly in order to capture the essence of birds’ movement and energy. Acrylic paint “flows” freely from the brush to surface, and dries rapidly. It gives me a working sense of freedom that I don’t always feel with oil paint or other mediums. Likewise, using a wood panel to paint on was also a strategic decision in making this painting. The hard, ungiving, wood surface allowed some energetic application of paint that would not have had as great an impact on a softer, more giving surface such as canvas. I chose a med/large dimension to accommodate the free motion of my arm and brush moving across the surface. I wanted to be “in” this space, and to have the movements of my body replicate the energy of birds in flight, fluttering, flitting, and perching within their colorful, imagined Eden.