First Snow, 2026
Oil, Acrylic, Ink, Crayon and Oil Pastel on Canvas
70 7/8" x 63" (180 x 160 cm)
Knop positions painting as a self-reflexive practice. As the artist puts it: “Painting is a system of problems.” Every decision motivates a reaction, and Knop builds every work onto itself in areas and layers. Each painting is guided by a scaffold of forms lifted from the landscape, which are unsettled by the very tactics that render them. Looking obliquely at a painting by Knop illuminates an archaeology of material and gesture: washes of ink, daubs of oil, mounds of pastel, carved lines of pencil. The results are photographic and hallucinatory at once, rendering the sunny hills and valleys of Europe in moody, hot tones.
Across the exhibition, landscape emerges as both setting and subject, imbued with a quiet tension. Small figures occasionally appear within these environments, dwarfed by their surroundings—at times suggesting fleeting encounters or distant memories. These glimpses feel almost familial, as though recalled rather than observed. These presences lend the works a subtle intimacy, even as the spaces themselves remain expansive and unknowable. Knop’s paintings balance the lyrical with the disquieting: he sets tenderness under searing orange skies, fear within inviting blossoms of paint, and curiosity in dark purple underbrush. In these works, moments of serenity are tempered by an undercurrent of instability, inviting viewers into a space where meaning remains open, contingent, and felt as much as seen.
Pierre Knop has presented solo exhibitions internationally, including at Gether Contemporary, Copenhagen, Denmark; Choi&Choi Gallery, Seoul, Korea and Cologne, Germany; Lyles & King, New York, NY; and Pilar Corrias, London. His work has been included in group exhibitions at Barbara Seiler Gallery, Zürich, Switzerland; Spazio Amanita, New York, NY; Meyer Riegger, Berlin, Germany; Jack Siebert Projects, Los Angeles, CA; Ruttkowski;68, Cologne, Germany; and Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA, among others. Pierre Knop completed a residency at CCA Andratx, Mallorca, Spain. The artist lives and works in Cologne, Germany.
