Carley Knight is a contemporary abstract fiber artist based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Working primarily in cross-stitch and crochet, Knight creates soft sculptures that take the form of web-like structures, exploring color and form. Her practice transforms traditional fiber techniques into contemporary abstract expressions, building intricate networks that investigate the interplay of hue, texture, and spatial relationships.
Born and raised in Milwaukee, Knight's connection to the city's creative community has shaped her artistic development. She studied at UW-Milwaukee's Peck School of the Arts from 2011 to 2013, where she began developing her distinctive approach to fiber as a sculptural medium.
Knight was selected for the 2015-16 MARN mentors program, where she worked with folk artist Della Wells. Their collaboration culminated in a mentor/mentee exhibition at VAR Gallery in Milwaukee in 2016, marking an important milestone in her emerging career.
Her work has been exhibited throughout Milwaukee and the Chicagoland area, including shows at Concordia University and ARC Gallery in Chicago. Through the intimate, labor-intensive process of fiber art, Knight continues to push the boundaries of traditional craft, creating abstract works that invite viewers to reconsider the sculptural possibilities of thread and yarn.
Statement
In an age of constant digital connection, I create fiber art that examines what it means to truly connect. My work emerges from a simple paradox: we live more connected than ever before, yet genuine human connection feels increasingly elusive.
I build abstract, web-like structures from fiber—a material that demands time, touch, and attention. Working with traditional materials, I subvert conventional techniques to create forms that map the invisible networks linking us together. These tangled, layered compositions visualize the complex systems we navigate daily: neural pathways, social networks, the threads of memory and relationship.
The slow, repetitive nature of fiber work contradicts our accelerated world. Each piece requires hours of deliberate action—knotting, weaving, layering—processes that resist speed. This temporal quality becomes part of the work's meaning. Where digital connection happens instantly and disappears just as fast, my hand-built structures insist on duration, on the value of time invested.
I manipulate shape, color, and negative space to create visual tension. The viewer encounters something simultaneously organic and constructed, chaotic and ordered—much like the experience of seeking authentic connection in our hyperconnected lives.
My work asks viewers to slow down, to consider the networks—both visible and invisible—that bind us. I want them to feel the weight of physical presence, to recognize that some forms of connection cannot be rushed or replicated digitally.
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