Kay Knight
kayk@uwm.edu
Shorewood, WI
kayk@uwm.edu
Shorewood, WI
Artist Statement
In the book “Off the Wall,” the authors
Lencek and Bosker write, “Wallpaper
literally dresses interior spaces as
expressively as clothes clad the body.
Both integuments function as extremely
public forms of communication that speak
of their owner’s cultural sensibilities,
private fantasies, erudition, economic and
social status, and psychological state.
The papers that ornament the walls of a
dwelling provide, in essence, a visual
chronicle of taste in flux and an eloquent
record of the shifting topographies of
domestic utopias.”
My current work has been a series of
drawings, paintings and mixed media
using actual vintage 1940’s and 50’s
wallpaper. My father was a trained
carpenter; I grew up with the sounds of
table saws and hammers ringing in my
ears. He built one of the houses my family
lived in and remodeled several others. The
thematic content of my work has been
referencing the idea of home. But with the
recent death of my father the content has a
more powerful meaning: On one level the
wallpaper reference, the home as a retreat
a place of comfort and security, something
my father provided; on another level using
actual wallpaper helps set the stage for a
series of symbolic psychological,
domestic stories. At first these stories that
I created referenced directly and indirectly,
post WWII, the Cold War and the loss of
my father. In the piece “Bricks and
Bombs,” a schematic drawing of a bomb
shelter sits on top of a series of torn and
cut strips of vintage wallpaper, which
references the American family reaction to
the Cold War. In the piece “Wall Work,”
vintage wallpaper is torn away with wood
grain contact paper showing underneath
as cutout roses and schematic drawings
hover on top. The source for this work is
based on a childhood memory of helping
to remodeled one of our homes walls,
scraping off old wallpaper. The rose
represents the care and tenderness my
father had for the working process that
allowing him to provided for is family.
Later I realized these symbolic stories
were part of a response to our collective
loss of freedom from fear since 9/11. Now
more recently with the mortgage lender’s
crisis has started to play a role in the
content, the fear of losing one’s home. In
the piece “Dream Home,” a partially
constructed house, which is made up of
collaged wallpaper and contact paper,
floats above an idyllic landscape with
scattered homes all roughly sketched in a
repetitive, wallpaper like fashion. The
beams can be seen; the house is
unfinished. There is a simultaneous
heaviness and lightness, creating a
contradictory feeling that, to me, reflects
the vulnerable times we live in.
In the book “Off the Wall,” the authors
Lencek and Bosker write, “Wallpaper
literally dresses interior spaces as
expressively as clothes clad the body.
Both integuments function as extremely
public forms of communication that speak
of their owner’s cultural sensibilities,
private fantasies, erudition, economic and
social status, and psychological state.
The papers that ornament the walls of a
dwelling provide, in essence, a visual
chronicle of taste in flux and an eloquent
record of the shifting topographies of
domestic utopias.”
My current work has been a series of
drawings, paintings and mixed media
using actual vintage 1940’s and 50’s
wallpaper. My father was a trained
carpenter; I grew up with the sounds of
table saws and hammers ringing in my
ears. He built one of the houses my family
lived in and remodeled several others. The
thematic content of my work has been
referencing the idea of home. But with the
recent death of my father the content has a
more powerful meaning: On one level the
wallpaper reference, the home as a retreat
a place of comfort and security, something
my father provided; on another level using
actual wallpaper helps set the stage for a
series of symbolic psychological,
domestic stories. At first these stories that
I created referenced directly and indirectly,
post WWII, the Cold War and the loss of
my father. In the piece “Bricks and
Bombs,” a schematic drawing of a bomb
shelter sits on top of a series of torn and
cut strips of vintage wallpaper, which
references the American family reaction to
the Cold War. In the piece “Wall Work,”
vintage wallpaper is torn away with wood
grain contact paper showing underneath
as cutout roses and schematic drawings
hover on top. The source for this work is
based on a childhood memory of helping
to remodeled one of our homes walls,
scraping off old wallpaper. The rose
represents the care and tenderness my
father had for the working process that
allowing him to provided for is family.
Later I realized these symbolic stories
were part of a response to our collective
loss of freedom from fear since 9/11. Now
more recently with the mortgage lender’s
crisis has started to play a role in the
content, the fear of losing one’s home. In
the piece “Dream Home,” a partially
constructed house, which is made up of
collaged wallpaper and contact paper,
floats above an idyllic landscape with
scattered homes all roughly sketched in a
repetitive, wallpaper like fashion. The
beams can be seen; the house is
unfinished. There is a simultaneous
heaviness and lightness, creating a
contradictory feeling that, to me, reflects
the vulnerable times we live in.
| Tool House, gouache on vintage wallpaper, 18”x23”, 2008 |
| "Bricks and Bombs, marker on velum and vintage wallpaper, 17”x22”, 2007 |
| Dream House, mixed medium,46”x40”, 2008 |
| Couple, graphite on velum and vintage wallpaper, 22”x35”, 2007 |
| House over Hills, mixed medium, 45”x57”, 2008 |
| Wall Work, mixed medium, 44”x33”, 2007 |