The long way home
Painting
Year: 2025
Edition: Unique
Technique: Pigments, charcoal, spray paint, chalk on raw unprimed canvas
Framed: No
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Knaut builds her compositions slowly over time, adding layers of colors and materials and then scraping them away, working them over and over. Gestural markings intermingle with bits of images taken from life, which are then rubbed away, transformed, abstracted and layered again.
The layered, painterly works of Braunschweig, Germany -based abstract painter Manuela Karin Knaut hover between the derelict and the precious. Their uncertain stillness—a frozen snapshot of tenuous balance in a chaotic world—evokes something both ancient and fleeting: a celebration of unexpected relationships between textures, gestures, colours and lines.
Education
Knaut earned her Master of Arts in Fine Art degree at the University of the Witswatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and her BA in Art Education from Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen. She studied fine art and painting at Braunschweig School of Fine Arts.
She is a member of several international artist organizations, including the Bund Bildender Künstler (German Association of Visual Artists); the Association Internationale des Arts Plastiques; and The Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA).
Technique
Knaut builds her compositions slowly over time, adding layers of colours and materials then scraping them away, working them over and over. Gestural markings intermingle with bits of images taken from life, which are then rubbed away, transformed, abstracted and layered again. Traditional paints are mixed with everyday materials like glue, fabric, scraps of photos, and bits of discarded paper, lending her paintings to some physical and visual qualities as the modern environments that inspire her.
The work is only considered finished when “the story of the painting has been told,” a moment of quiet balance that comes along unexpectedly at times. Knaut then removes the painting from the chaos of the studio and hangs it on a wall for one last moment of contemplation before it is finally signed.
Inspiration
The intuitive, layered approach that Knaut brings to her paintings echoes her own desire to break out of her comfort zone, mentally and physically. Her search for a polyrhythmic visual language, in which a multitude of colours, textures and materials intermingle, is informed by her extensive world travels. She is as inspired by the stories of the people she meets as she is by what she calls the “charming imperfections” of the places she visits: the dilapidated surfaces of urban walls; or the colourful abundance and chaotic energy of street life. Just as she seeks out confrontations with the untamed aspects of her existence outside of the studio, Knaut strives to bring that same sense of adventure and uncertainty into each of her paintings. The tension that arises between that duality, between what is chosen, and what is unexpected, is at the heart of the work.
Artist's Quote
“The field of tension between chaos and order, fluidity and structure is immanent, not only in global events, this city and our lives, but also in my own composite artistic creation.”
Exhibitions
Knaut has exhibited extensively in Germany, as well as in South Africa, and her work has been featured in several contemporary art fairs, including The Other Art Fair in London.
Galleries
Gallery Red (Palma, Spain)
Paul Stewart Gallery (Paris, France)
99 Loop Gallery (Cape Town, South Africa)
ALL YOU CAN ART (Munich, Germany)
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