BARBARA KNIGHT

​What is our common sense of beauty? What is ugliness?

​Rather, the adage “One person’s trash is another person’s treasure,”applies to my work and perceptions of it. It’s a matter of energy. I pick up only those fragments of paper, trash, string, plastic and mesh that draw me in and that I respond to, something energetic otherwise missed, in a Duchampian tradition of recognition. Transforming non-traditional materials like used paper and corrugated cardboard into art, materials usually considered as trash, part of our waste culture once their function of transport in a local or global sense is done, has a quirky, almost subversive appeal for me. When I explore and reveal qualities and structure of corrugated cardboard or let elements that attracted me find themselves dramatically on a surface or together, I allow their combined energy to be the subject and subtext of the work, resulting in the release of a vibrant new energy that I love and that resonates with viewers.

Shown below is “Both Sides Now,” a billboard-scale work measuring close to 8 x 10 feet, about 236 x 290 centimeters, that I created in Chania, Crete, for my solo exhibition, Confluences, at Match More Gallery, Platanias, July 2024. It combines fragments torn off New York City billboards with paper from Chania--posters, corrugated, donated and painted elements—into a unified whole. I am an artist finding value in something devalued, transforming unexpected materials into something mysterious and magical. 

                                                                                                                                                                 

Barbara Knight, January 2025