Combining the foraging assemblage of his Australian avant-garde predecessors with a boyish painterly gusto, Jasper Knight creates images that pay homage to the industrial past of Sydney. A former winner of the Mosman Art Prize (Wharf with Yellow Palings, 2008), Knight has a deep personal connection with Sydney Harbour, having grown up on the foreshore of Kirribilli. His painted works depict the vehicles, facades, decaying docklands and industrial refuse of the city’s built urban environment, in synthetic colours and reusing materials that have contributed to its transformation.
Spit Bridge Tower, painted in 2015, displays the hexagonal control tower at the centre of the Spit Bridge with heroic monumentality. Knight’s lustrous warm tones evoke his fond memories of childhood fascination with the structure.
Text: Lucie Reeves Smith