Oil, Acrylic, Gold leaf, thread on Canvas 34 x 46, 2025
Perhaps the Chorus of the series; Birds of a Feather presents a wicked display of neo-classical elegance. A stately, decorative vase sits as the centerpiece, perhaps suggesting high-society refinement and “superficial” beauty. The background pattern functions as a rhythmic, graphic echo of the foreground—Knight’s humorous yet sophisticated play on the idea of a “record” or a frozen moment in time. This decorative repetition lures the viewer into a sense of order, stability, and historical nostalgia, making the work feel at home within the canon of traditional ornament. Reality emerges from the vessel’s design itself, which houses a single entity fractured into three faces in a silent yell. This is the visual manifestation of the “Prisoners of our own device.” It critiques the digital struggle of maintaining multiple personas, where the line between the authentic self and the curated avatar has been erased until the “real” you is indistinguishable. The faces are literally becoming part of the ornament, suggesting a “slippery slope” where we can succumb to our own materialism and superficiality. At the base of the pedestal, a beaded “NO CAP” bracelet sits as a stark yet humorous reminder of the search for truth in a filtered world. Amidst this psychological entrapment, the birds remain the only agents of freedom and truth; one stares back at the audience, a silent witness gesturing for us to check our own realities before we, too, become embedded in the pattern.
