Kyle Knobel

In Unknown Knowns Kyle Knobel explores the murky territory between what think we know and that which is not understood or even unknowable. By abandoning the need to constantly understand what the work is about, the artist opens up a space to question, experience, and create – free from overt narrative or even rational understanding.

The first body represents the Unknown. Inlaid slabs of mixed clay bodies are constructed with both a level of constraint and by methods of chance. Stripped of storytelling, the visual experience and physicality become the main driving force.

The second body represents the Known. Ink drawings on tan paper are rendered in wide, graphic lines – reduced to largely gestural compositions of details culled from daily moments. Plants, braided hair, brick patterns, woven furniture, a hand, all are presented on an equal playing field, democratized as 'real and known.'

Kyle Knobel is influenced by American craft, skateboarding graphics, vintage cartooning, psychedelic culture, independent publishing, and the weirder edges of graphic design.

Born 1973 in Upstate NY and living in San Francisco since the late 1990's, he was exposed to and influenced by the Mission School while volunteering at The LAB gallery and Adobe Books (where he now serves as the Creative Director in residence). Solo Bay Area shows include Eleanor Harwood Gallery, Triple Base, and Artists Television Access, with participation in group shows at The Luggage Store gallery, Truesilver gallery, Gallery 16, and Headlands Center for the Arts.