Dustan Knight “Winter Birches”

36 x 36 inches, acrylic on canvas

Dustan Knight is a professional artist, educator, and art writer. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree from Duke University, her Masters in Fine Art from Pratt Institute in NYC and her MA in Art History from Boston University. She is a recipient of a NH State Fellowship for the Arts, a MacDowell Colony residency, and a past Cummington Artist Colony resident. She is a contributing writer to Art New England, a frequent juror, and gives demonstrations and workshops in watercolor, art business, and art history. Dustan Knight’s artistic sensibility is strongly influenced by her post-graduate years in New York City, where she was involved in the Expressionist movement of new artists in the eighties. Like them, she believes that art should be a passionate statement from the artist's innermost self.
Artist Statement:
During the summer of 2013, I began to revisit a more physical gestural approach to my florals using oil and acrylic as well as watercolor. I am inspired by the expressionist semi abstract painters of the sixties as I continue to refine my sense of color to more vibrant combinations and emphasis on transitions between passages. Thematically, I attempt to unravel my fascination with the garden…whether it is a hidden sanctuary or a metaphor, or both.