Untitled (Armageddon), 2006
© Mark McKnight
Mark McKnight e-mailed me with nice things to say about my new work. I couldn’t have been happier to discover his own photographs and pay him the kind words back. Mark doesn’t have a personal website at the moment but he has, in my opinion, one of the best portfolios on Tiny Vices.
This body of work, which he says is tentatively titled This Dust Makes That Mud, is actually a combination of projects that he was worked on for the last few years – Nudes and Pearblossom Highway, a series of photographs made along a highway that travels between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
Genny at Home, 2006
© Mark McKnight
Untitled (Wet Floor), 2007
© Mark McKnight
“I’m interested in intermediate space and the obligation to live somewhere versus the choice,” Mark explained to me. “This particular highway finds people who don’t want to live in either major city and also finds a great deal of people who just can’t afford to.”
Untitled (Girl and Ice Cream), 2007
© Mark McKnight
The photographs effectively capture the people and places along the highway but very quickly I find that they speak about a lot more than this notion of belonging or choice and touch on many of the same feelings I am thinking about with my new work. It’s actually rather refreshing to see his “separate” projects grouped together into one poetic portfolio.
Generally us photographers hope that viewers will find themselves taking part in these internal conversations as a result of looking at our work and, in turn, identify with particular images. Well, Mark’s photographs really struck a chord in me and I know I’ll be looking at them again soon.
I think we both just got each other very excited about photography today (not that either of us were not already).
See more of his photographs here.
5 Comments
February 9, 2008 – 3:53 pm
Ooo he is good. Awesome work!
February 19, 2008 – 2:29 pm
Marks photos are great!
February 22, 2008 – 11:34 pm
mark is killing it and his work just somehow keeps getting better and better. it’s just a matter of time…
October 24, 2008 – 10:21 am
Mark McKnight is amazing. His work is so emotional and intimate. I love it. Great post!
November 23, 2009 – 6:17 pm
Why has that wee girl no clothes on? She’ll catch her death of cold!!
5 Trackbacks
[...] McKnight, who I recently mentioned on the blog, is having an exhibition that all of you in San Francisco must check [...]
[...] an underlying landscape; urbanized, exploited, at war and in flux. He has shows with names like This Dust Makes That Mud and Many Meanings Are Attached To [...]
[...] Mark McKnight: Mark McKnight was born in 1984 and received his BFA in 2007 from the San Francisco Art Institute. He is a recent [...]
[...] & Allegories, a catalog for an exhibition of the same name curated by Lay Flat 01 contributor Mark McKnight. The exhibition is currently on display at SIGHT SCHOOL in Oakland, CA. Edition of 500, available [...]
[...] Chronicle by Ari Messer of a group show in SFO last year and a nice post with images from 2008 on Shane Lavalette Journal. You ought to look at this, it’s really great [...]