Biography
Manuela Karin Knaut, born 1970, is an independent artist currently living in Braunschweig, Germany. She acquired a Master of Arts in Fine Art at the University of the Witswatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.
She has been a member of the Bund Bildender Künstler (German Association of Visual Artists) and the Association Internationale des Arts Plastiques, as well as The Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA). Member of the Photomuseum Braunschweig and GEDOK Niedersachsen.
Since 1990 various exhibitions nationally and internationally, amongst them in Japan, South Africa, Ghana, Switzerland, Mexico, Danmark, UK, Austria, USA, Israel, Kirghistan. Her works are represented worldwide in public and private collections.
Painterly Work
Manuela Karin Knaut’s painterly work reflects the enthusiasm of the artist for travel, the discovery of new terrain and the inevitable leaving of her own comfort zone. The often harsh reality on the streets of Johannesburg, the to German eyes unexpectedly chaotic and disorderly-seeming life in the townships, the colourful variety in the narrow alleys of Accra, the unvarnished, broken walls, the graffiti of the street artists of Brooklyn, the uninhibited, real life and action in the most diverse corners of the world: it is the brokenness, the charmingly imperfect, the frequently temporary-seeming that fascinates Manuela Karin Knaut, and which she imbues into her pictorial language and the primary idea of her location-specific and large format installations. It is the rough edges and ends of life far away from the centre, far from the average safety and comfort. The artist consciously seeks out these confrontations with barriers and the edges of society.
Knaut expresses this restlessness, this almost childish, unprepossessing curiosity and adventurousness in her works. Her paintings are balancing acts of colour, form and line, surface and space, abstraction and figurativeness, image and text. Individual areas of colour are put down with strong paint marks and then worked over and over. A variety of more or less defined objects keep being woven into the painterly process. Everyday objects straight from life are contoured with line, or painted over, or revealed again.
The artist combines a great variety of materials in her paintings, true to the work style inspired by elements of street art scenes. She glues paper waste, images, photos, fabric pieces or bits of text onto her paintings, ties, rips, glues, sews or nails found objects onto or into her image worlds. She adds, reduces, scrapes, rips, rubs – no painting is treated like a raw egg. Life is frequently chaotic in Manuela Knaut’s generous studio and integrated print workshop. The artist works in four rooms on a variety of works concurrently, some hang on the walls, some wait in the drying rack for the next phase of work, others lean up somewhere or just lie on the floor. Here a layer of concrete is drying, there preparations for screen printing take form. In another place a base coat, a varnish, a glue or spray is applied. Still in all the chaos there is never any doubt about the moment when a painting is ‘finished’, when the story of that painting has been told. In the same clear and seemingly spontaneous way in which the first layers of paint have found their way onto the canvas, she is just as definitive about the point at which the work is finished. Sometimes after 15 minutes, sometimes after days or even weeks.
Next the works are hung on a plain white presentation wall, checked again and again and finally signed. At this moment a strange peace captures the usually pulsating studio space. Time, peace and space for observers, for their own stories and an invitation to let the thoughts wander and find one’s own place in the colourful world of Manuela Karin Knaut.
Statement
Artist Statement – Manuela Karin Knaut
My work unfolds at the intersection of large-scale gestural painting, experimental photography, and spatial installation. What began as distinct disciplines has evolved into a fluid, process-based practice where materials, techniques, and formats merge, overlap, and inform one another. Layer by layer, visual spaces emerge where memory, materiality, and gesture enter into dialogue.
Travel – both physical and conceptual – is an integral part of my practice. Working in different cultural contexts challenges my perspective, expands my awareness, and allows me to grow through artistic exchange. These movements directly influence my work: in the materials I choose, the openness of my process, and my willingness to respond to chance, trace, and tension.
At the core lies an ongoing engagement with memory and archive – themes that shaped not only my artistic vision but also my academic research during my Master’s degree at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. My works become visual containers of time and transformation, reflecting what disappears, what remains, and what can be reactivated. Art, to me, is a space of connection – between inner and outer worlds, across time, people, and places. I want to stay open, keep learning, collaborate, shift perspectives – and keep looking again, with fresh eyes.
ARTIST STATEMENT (DEUTSCH)
Meine Arbeit bewegt sich zwischen großformatiger, gestischer Malerei, experimenteller Fotografie und raumgreifender Installation. Was ursprünglich als getrennte Disziplinen begann, hat sich zu einer offenen, prozesshaften Praxis entwickelt, in der sich unterschiedliche Medien überlagern, verbinden und gegenseitig durchdringen. Schicht für Schicht entstehen visuelle Räume, in denen Erinnerung, Materialität und Geste miteinander in Dialog treten.
Das Reisen – sowohl geografisch als auch gedanklich – ist ein wesentlicher Bestandteil meines künstlerischen Prozesses. In neuen kulturellen Kontexten zu arbeiten, bedeutet für mich, Perspektiven zu verschieben, Wahrnehmung zu erweitern und durch künstlerischen Austausch zu wachsen. Diese Bewegungen fließen direkt in meine Arbeit ein: in die Wahl der Materialien, in die Offenheit des Prozesses und in die Bereitschaft, auf Zufall, Spur und Spannung zu reagieren. Im Zentrum steht eine kontinuierliche Auseinandersetzung mit Erinnerung und Archiv – Themen, die nicht nur meine künstlerische Haltung prägen, sondern auch im Mittelpunkt meines Masterstudiums an der University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg standen. Meine Werke werden zu visuellen Speichern von Zeit und Transformation. Sie reflektieren, was verschwindet, was bleibt – und was sich neu aktivieren lässt.
Kunst ist für mich ein Ort der Verbindung – zwischen Innen und Außen, zwischen Menschen, Zeiten und Räumen. Ich möchte offen bleiben, lernen, kollaborieren, Perspektiven verschieben – und immer wieder neu hinschauen.