Spring
acrylic on canvas, 40x36
2003
Artist Richard Knowles
Courtesy of L. Ross Gallery
Richard Knowles was a beloved art professor at the University of Memphis from 1966-1999 that influenced numerous other artists before he passed away in 2010. Spring is one of a series of paintings inspired by his travels in the Southwest. In his wife's view (former Memphis Flyer art critic Carol Knowles), the "soft-green palette and subtle washes of yellow and orange feel ethereal, at the same time, I can feel the compressed energy of new life bursting forth. For me, the three dark lines at the center of the work simultaneously invoke the searching marks of an artist, the branches of a sapling twisted by wind and twisting toward light…"
