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Simmie Knox: Striving for Simplicity
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14805 |
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THE ARTS
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7 / 1996 |
707 Words |
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Washington, D.C., artist Simmie Knox has come a long way from the Alabama farm where he spent his childhood. Born in 1935, he worked the fields with his family, going to school whenever the farming season allowed. Later, in Mobile, nuns at a Catholic school recognized his talent and brought in a letter carrier to tutor him in the rudiments of art on Saturdays. (That was the only art schooling allowed a black child in the segregated South of the time.)
Young Knox mostly taught himself how to paint human figures, and went to college presuming he would learn how to paint them better. But once there, he was expected to produce abstract art. He rose to the challenge and found he loved it. "In fact," he says, "now, if I had my choice--if I had lots of money or got a grant--I'd like to spend two to three years making abstract paintings." In 1972 his abstract works were included in the Corcoran Biennial.
After completing his graduate work at Temple University that year, however, he returned to representational painting. "The most salient reason was economics," he admits. But he also had a desire to incorporate what he had learned from abstract painting into the painting of figures.
"In abstract painting you really get the opportunity to explore, to just let your hand go," he says. "Sometimes there are happy accidents--things that you would never be able to do intentionally. That's the joy of abstract painting. But also, in abstract painting you have to have a good understanding of the elements of design and composition, because that's what you mostly rely on--how to use color, texture, shapes, juxtapositions to make something that
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