John Knuth is pushing the boundaries of what painting can be, transforming the most unexpected materials into shimmering, thought-provoking works of art. For his recent series, Knuth developed an unconventional process that starts with mail-ordering hundreds of thousands of maggots, which mature into houseflies inside a custom-built enclosure of canvases wrapped in netting.
These flies feed on sugar water mixed with acrylic paint, repeatedly ingesting and regurgitating it over two to three months covering the canvases with countless tiny specks of color.
Inspired by the haze of Los Angeles smog, these organic marks create vibrant, pointillist landscapes that blur the line between beauty and decay, attraction and repulsion.
Through this alchemical approach, Knuth challenges traditional ideas of art-making by turning what is usually considered repulsive into something mesmerizing, continuing a lineage of artists who transform unlikely materials into powerful visual statements. ” ‘I started working with the flies because I was curious about how flies spread disease and how they digest,‘ knuth says, the more I worked with them the more I got interested in the process of condensing them to make something beautiful and beyond their nature.“
Featuring Image Courtesy: Ocula
Minerva is a visual artist and currently serves as a sub editor at Abir Pothi.
