BRINKERHOFF FINE ART

     STEPHEN KNAPP 

 

Stephen Knapp is an American artist best known as the creator of Lightpaintings, which have been called the first new art medium of the twenty-first century.  Dispensing with traditional media and narrative content, Knapp is one of a small group of artists who work with light, creating Lightpaintings that make visible the light that surrounds us and transforming it into something physical yet inherently transcendental.

Deriving inspiration from his studies of light, color, dimension, space and perception, artist Stephen Knapp has been creating art that interacts with and is transformed by light for over thirty years.  He began his career as a photographer and evolved his own specialized processes through research and experimentation.  He progressed to building large metal panels and glazed ceramic murals that are reflective and responsive to changing light conditions.  What followed was the fabrication of kiln-formed glass walls and glass and steel sculpture, all leading up to his more recent focus on Lightpaintings, a word Knapp coined to describe his light-based installations.  Created with with light, treated glass, and stainless steel mounts, Lightpaintings exist at the crossroads of abstract painting, sculpture, and technology.