ALL THE ROOMS WE LEFT UNFINISHED
Before I made a single mark, something had already happened here.
I found this precious linen at a vintage market in London. Its edges, its yellowed passages, the traces held within its surface—all carried a history I could only partly read.
At 2 metres high and 2.80 metres wide, that history now occupies an entirely different space.
I let the marks of time remain visible. They enter the composition, interrupt the colour, and influence where the painting takes me. My own gestures become another layer in a story already underway.
This is where my painting and installation practice meet: in materials that have lived before they reach my studio. Their histories are an essential part of the work. I preserve what remains and continue its story through my own emotions, questions, and ideas.
There is an intimacy in working with something whose past you will never fully know. You become responsible for its traces, even as you change its future.
Nothing is used up. A remnant becomes a beginning. Something of another life moves forward into this one. And some rooms remain unfinished so that we can keep entering them.
#ManuelaKarinKnaut #ContemporaryPainting #MaterialMemory #InstallationArt #LargeScalePainting
ALL THE ROOMS WE LEFT UNFINISHED
Before I made a single mark, something had already happened here.
I found this precious linen at a vintage market in London. Its edges, its yellowed passages, the traces held within its surface—all carried a history I could only partly read.
At 2 metres high and 2.80 metres wide, that history now occupies an entirely different space.
I let the marks of time remain visible. They enter the composition, interrupt the colour, and influence where the painting takes me. My own gestures become another layer in a story already underway.
This is where my painting and installation practice meet: in materials that have lived before they reach my studio. Their histories are an essential part of the work. I preserve what remains and continue its story through my own emotions, questions, and ideas.
There is an intimacy in working with something whose past you will never fully know. You become responsible for its traces, even as you change its future.
Nothing is used up. A remnant becomes a beginning. Something of another life moves forward into this one. And some rooms remain unfinished so that we can keep entering them.
#ManuelaKarinKnaut #ContemporaryPainting #MaterialMemory #InstallationArt #LargeScalePainting
A work I’m ready to return to. One that has occupied my mind for months.
Each piece stands 2.50 metres tall and 1.60 metres wide—a scale I love. It challenges me, pushes me to my limits, and refuses to be rushed.
And that is exactly why I love bringing these works out again and again, finding my way through them, giving them my energy and time.
I feel I’m getting close now. Close to that moment when everything falls into place.
#LargeScalePainting #AbstractArt #WorkInProgress #StudioPractice #KnautContemporary
A work I’m ready to return to. One that has occupied my mind for months.
Each piece stands 2.50 metres tall and 1.60 metres wide—a scale I love. It challenges me, pushes me to my limits, and refuses to be rushed.
And that is exactly why I love bringing these works out again and again, finding my way through them, giving them my energy and time.
I feel I’m getting close now. Close to that moment when everything falls into place.
#LargeScalePainting #AbstractArt #WorkInProgress #StudioPractice #KnautContemporary
SOLD — At 4.60 metres long, this is one of the largest paintings ever to leave my studio.
Painted on high-quality linen over several months at the beginning of this year, it went through many phases. At first, it was quiet and restrained. This was followed by a phase in which I added green accents using oil paints and spray paint, along with delicate drawn marks. Then came an abundance of colour. Finally, I softened it again through numerous layers of translucent paint.
Yet its entire history remains visible. Earlier marks, colours and decisions still surface through the layers, like a whirlwind that has finally come to rest.
I know that all the energy I pour into my paintings stays within them, even when they are completely painted over and their original character can only be sensed beneath the layers.
It means so much to see this painting find its place in a major collection. A work that occupied such a large part of my studio—and my thoughts—is beginning a new chapter.
#ManuelaKarinKnaut #LargeScalePainting #ContemporaryPainting #AbstractArt #ArtCollection
SOLD — At 4.60 metres long, this is one of the largest paintings ever to leave my studio.
Painted on high-quality linen over several months at the beginning of this year, it went through many phases. At first, it was quiet and restrained. This was followed by a phase in which I added green accents using oil paints and spray paint, along with delicate drawn marks. Then came an abundance of colour. Finally, I softened it again through numerous layers of translucent paint.
Yet its entire history remains visible. Earlier marks, colours and decisions still surface through the layers, like a whirlwind that has finally come to rest.
I know that all the energy I pour into my paintings stays within them, even when they are completely painted over and their original character can only be sensed beneath the layers.
It means so much to see this painting find its place in a major collection. A work that occupied such a large part of my studio—and my thoughts—is beginning a new chapter.
#ManuelaKarinKnaut #LargeScalePainting #ContemporaryPainting #AbstractArt #ArtCollection
THE BIG EASY
210 × 140 cm
Play first. Pull the threads together later.
In abstract painting, I give myself time to get lost. Follow a line. Let a colour take over. Make a move without knowing where it will lead.
But there comes a moment when playing turns into choosing. I pick up the loose threads, decide what stays, what needs space, and what might connect it all. Until the painting becomes a whole that makes sense to me. Right then, in that moment. Still wild. Still room to breathe.
A little like New Orleans—different rhythms, unexpected encounters, and somehow, it all belongs.
#TheBigEasy #NewOrleansArt #NOLAArt #LargeScalePainting #KnautContemporary
THE BIG EASY
210 × 140 cm
Play first. Pull the threads together later.
In abstract painting, I give myself time to get lost. Follow a line. Let a colour take over. Make a move without knowing where it will lead.
But there comes a moment when playing turns into choosing. I pick up the loose threads, decide what stays, what needs space, and what might connect it all. Until the painting becomes a whole that makes sense to me. Right then, in that moment. Still wild. Still room to breathe.
A little like New Orleans—different rhythms, unexpected encounters, and somehow, it all belongs.
#TheBigEasy #NewOrleansArt #NOLAArt #LargeScalePainting #KnautContemporary
No particular order. Just bits and pieces of this wonderfully wild life I love so much.
Art, travel, new places, unexpected people, plans changing along the way. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Thanks for following along. 🤍
#ArtistOnTheRoad #ArtAndTravel #CreativeLife #TravelDiaries #ManuelaKarinKnaut
No particular order. Just bits and pieces of this wonderfully wild life I love so much.
Art, travel, new places, unexpected people, plans changing along the way. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Thanks for following along. 🤍
#ArtistOnTheRoad #ArtAndTravel #CreativeLife #TravelDiaries #ManuelaKarinKnaut
“Who said flowers have to behave?”
Unregular Bunch of Flowers
A bouquet with a mind of its own. A little unruly, full of movement, and all the better for it.
125 × 125 cm | approx. 49 × 49 in
#flowers #art
“Who said flowers have to behave?”
Unregular Bunch of Flowers
A bouquet with a mind of its own. A little unruly, full of movement, and all the better for it.
125 × 125 cm | approx. 49 × 49 in
#flowers #art