Silke Otto-Knapp

Silke Otto-Knapp’s practice involves rinsing away layers of watercolor on canvas to create a nearly transparent wash of paint in a ghostly and luminous effect. Otto-Knapp finds "hybrid positions with their unresolved status particularly interesting," she has said. "It’s about putting the transparent quality of the paint into conflict with the clarity of the photographic image." Focusing on subjects ranging from lush, near-abstract landscapes to moving figures, Otto-Knapp occasionally deviates from her muted palette to create vividly chromatic works, though always with a profusion of hazy light making figures indistinct. Like most of her paintings, the series “Winterlong” (2009) is based on photographs, used here to depict modern dancers in motion.