Untitled (6 hours, December 13, 2009)
archival inkjet print 30″ x 39″
Courtesy of the Artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston, MA
September 11, 2010 — November 7, 2010
Opening Reception September 12, 5 – 7 pm
Gallery Talk Sunday, October 24, 3 pm
About the Exhibit
Through photographs, audio recordings and video, Robert Knight’s Sleepless examines the contradiction between the expectations about sleep and it’s nocturnal reality. Knight sets up his view camera as his subjects prepare for bed. The room darkens for sleep and the lens of the camera is left open. What transpires in the next several hours is captured on film and in audio recording. The resulting images, saturated with color, are a combination of sharp focus (objects in the room which do not move) accompanied by the ghost like blurring of the subject as the restlessness of sleep is documented. Unusual colors result from the interaction of the light – from outside penetrating the window treatments or from sources within the room, a night light or even a watch. The audio, a cacophony of sirens, horns, dogs barking, people talking, cars speeding, is anything but soothing or relaxing. “My photographs and videos reveal a state of restlessness through ethereal and translucent bodies which are captured during long-exposure night time shots. The resultant images are nighttime narratives – stories of our nights sleep which suggest a contemporary sleep crisis in our society.”
About the Artist
Robert Knight graduated with undergraduate degrees in Economics and Architecture from Yale University in 1995 before going on to complete a Master of Fine Arts in Photography at Mass College of Art in 2006. He has had solo exhibitions of his work in the Bakalar Gallery at the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston; ArtSpace, New Haven, CT; and at Gallery Kayafas, Boston. In addition, his work has appeared in group exhibitions at the Attleboro Museum, the Danforth Museum of Art and the Houston Center for Photography. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts and numerous private collections. Critical reviews have appeared in the Boston Globe and Art New England Magazine. He has received awards from the Cambridge Art Association and the Houston Center of Photography. Robert Knight has taught at the MIT and Massachusetts College of Art. He is currently teaching at Emerson College and the New England Institute of Photography.
More information about the artist can be found at www.robertknight.com.