Selfportrait
Margot Quan Knight
Margot Quan Knight was born 26 years ago in Seattle, Washington, USA. She studied photography at Dartmouth College and graduated with honors in 1999 with a Bachelor's of Art degree in Studio Art. From September 2000 to May 2002 she was a sponsored photographer at Fabrica, the communication arts research center of Benetton. Her cutting edge work has been exhibited in personal shows in Bologna, Milan, Paris, and Lisbon and featured in over 40 international art and culture magazines including PHOTO France, Neo2, and Zoom. More of her images can be seen online at www.margotknight.com. Margot is represented in Seattle by Atelier 31 Gallery and in Italy by GAS Art Gallery.
Artist's Statement
The images I make provide logical conclusions to my own absurd hypotheses and show how these fabulous possibilities could meld into the everyday world. I begin with objects or bodies and try to give them more life, or a different kind of life. Loneliness, exuberance, and wonder take on physical form.
My work is influenced by the fantasies of artists, including Duane Michals, Barbara Kruger, Orlan, James Victoire, Chema Madoz, and The Brothers Quay, but above all it is a refraction of the world I encounter in my life. My parents' medical textbook "Recognizable Patterns of Human Malformation," trees coated with sleeping butterflies, seizures between a gunshot and death, and lemon-flavored ants have fed my imagination with the wonders of reality. However, to see the world is also to see broken places, chemicals in the water, hungry people. I want to make fantastic, painful images to talk about the real world and the miraculous human body.
Made at FABRICA
Fabrica is the communication arts research and development center of the Benetton Group. Founded in 1994, Fabrica has chosen to back the creativity of young artists/researchers from all over the world. Following careful selection, they are invited to develop concrete communication projects, in sectors as wide-ranging as cinema, industrial design, music, graphic design, new media and photography. For more information about Fabrica, visit www.fabrica.it.
