Conor Knight
Conor approaches traditional genres of painting in a contemporary manner as an autodidactic artist. He works primarily from life painting “alla prima”, a technique in which the painting is completed in one attempt. This energetic way of painting gives his work an immediacy that imbues his subject with life and movement.
Conor has been a finalist in the Lethbridge 20000 Small Scale Art Award (2021 and 2023), Clayton Utz Art Award (2021), National Emerging Art Prize (2021), Tony White Memorial Art Prize (2022), Lethbridge Landscape Prize (2023), Brisbane Portrait Prize (2023) and was awarded second place in the figurative category of the Doyles Art Award 2023
“El Aula” was created over the course of a year, of which the artist spent eight months living and working in Spain. Knight worked as an assistant English teacher in the small city of Villena. This meant many mornings and afternoons in ‘el aula’, the classroom. Knight considers this period of his career as his own learning experience. While each still life could be carefully arranged in his studio, then lay the challenge of capturing the mood and light of streets and cities unfamiliar to him.
