Hannah Hoffman celebrated Dominique Knowles My Beloved with an opening reception on Saturday, June 3, 2023. The exhibition has been extended through August 5, 2023.

Dominique Knowles My Beloved

Dominique Knowles, The Solemn and Dignified Burial Befitting My Beloved for All Seasons, 2023

Dominique Knowles My Beloved

This exhibition was inspired by the loss of the artist’s beloved horse that passed away in 2021. The ongoing period of mourning experienced by Knowles features the sacred relationship between rider and horse. In addition, Knowles compares the painting of a horse to the brushing of one. The mode of composing his works mimics that of equine care. For example, the wide sweeps on large surfaces to concentrated performances on smaller ones. Along with the feel the bristles glide across a body and effectively translate this requires the mining of corporeal memory. A poetics of mark-making is thus established and remains integral to Knowles’s practice. Observe the delicacy of each brushstroke, as he lovingly painted these objects of grief and desire.

This body of work thus takes on the aesthetics and sentiments of religion, with one painting constructed in the shape of an altar painting. Knowles observes these paintings like one observes the body during a wake.

Inspiration

In his own literalization of church interiors, the Dutch Golden age painter Pieter Saenredam emptied the cavernous rooms and focused instead on the “bare bones,” divested of religious sentiment. These works are described by Roland Barthes as amounting to “a very up-to-date aesthetic of silence.” While Saenredam captured the architectures with cold precision, Knowles seeks the coordinates of spiritual wonder within these zones of worship and sorrow.

The artist instead pursues a primordial silence, one that vibrates with sublimity. His version of “holy space”prescribes a transformation, as though the experience of being inside could provide a slight elevation from the world beyond its walls.

About Dominique Knowles

Dominique Knowles (b. 1996 in The Bahamas) lives and works in Chicago and Paris. This is his first show with the gallery. Knowles received both his MFA in Painting as a New Artist Society Award scholar in 2020 as well as his BFA in 2017 from The School of the Art Institute of

CLICK HERE to find out about past exhibitions at this gallery.

On view: June 3 2023 – August 5, 2023

What: Dominique Knowles My Beloved
Where: Hannah Hoffman Gallery, 2504 W 7th Street, 2nd Floor, LA, 90057
When: Extended to August 5, 2023
Website: https://hannahhoffman.la/