Feature Artist: lostlosangeles
An Interview With: Jason Knight
Dr. Christophers: Give me some background on where you come from, and the lifestyle that set in motion your desire to becoming an Artist. And, how did it all start for you, with regards to inspiration for making art? Who and what were the main inspirations for your style of artwork?
Jason: My background is in psychology and I developed a significant interest in ethnography and cultural anthropology through the end of undergraduate and into graduate school. As I look at my work, I see an attempt to make sense of the literally forgotten side of consumerism. This interest has started to move in the direction of nature's reclamation and exploring how the individual engages in industry without understanding inherent flaws or emptinesses. About 5 years ago, I received a used Canon film SLR as a gift. I wasn't excited by the typical things that the people around me were shooting such as nature and landscapes. Then, a few months later, I walked by the abandoned Van de Kamps bakery in Los Angeles and felt an intense curiosity. I returned a few days later with my camera and found a reason to shoot. I think about my work in terms of emergent themes, meaning I shoot what I am drawn to and then look for meaning as I process and title the photos. I am inspired by photographers who use old technologies such as Allan Barnes and moominsean . I am also inspired by the surrealists such as Brooke Shaden. I really like Meatyard's work too. I am, of course, inspired by all the urban exploration photographers. They are probably the funnest people to climb fences with!
Dr. Christophers: Talk to me about the medium you use mostly and why - talk about process.
Jason: In terms of medium, I generally try to create images that significantly push themes such like decay vs. newness. In order to accomplish this, I often use expired film and HDR processing. I also tend to collect objects from the place that I go. At some point, I plan on at least displaying them and maybe using them to create.
Dr. Christophers: In your eyes, your most memorable works: can you give me an example (funny) of the process of creating it (a story of miss-adventure, etc).
Jason: In terms of powerful images, I think my work from New Orleans is quite memorable. In terms of confusion and discovery, I think my Mulholland car wreck series was quite interesting. These ruins proved a little more difficult to discover than I had originally expected. As a result, I found myself proceeding in increasingly random patterns, grabbing at roots, close to tumbling down the hillside like the cars I was hunting. After one near fall, I looked up and saw a color that didn’t quite fit with the greens and browns of the hillside. It was a little off. A rust color. It was the first of the car wrecks that I would find. Judging from the lack of trees above it, it looked like it had barrel-rolled down the hillside. And it had been here for a while, I think. There was no leather interior, no plastic, no upholstery. Just the red, rusted metal and the shoots growing out of a long-ago crushed tree that still managed to survive and flourish. I was on one bank of a hairpin turn, and just the one car was there. I crossed to the other side and climbed up the creek that ran down that canyon, and I was astonished at what I found. First, a disintegrating section of crankshaft, half-buried in the creek, then big sections of plastic bumper, semi-buried in the walls of the narrow canyon and in the creek bed. And when I crested the next rise, I saw entire cars. Some were almost completely buried. Some were totally exposed. I saw at least seven that were mostly visible. I wondered how many more were buried, and in one section of debris, there were three cars, stacked haphazardly on top of each other. One car had a splintered loop of cable tied to its bumper.
A friend later told me that the city had tried and failed to pull some of these cars out of the canyon. With the expense, lack of success, and lack of outcry, they apparently gave up. I understood what he meant. Unreasonable expense is an unexpected, but grand protector of modern ruins.
Dr. Christophers: Talk to me about "Jason Knight (lostlosangeles)" designs (wishes) for the future with regards to your artwork, etc.
Jason: I plan to continue pushing the concepts of decay and rebirth with medium, processing, and concept. I would like to explore distressing film further and in composition with the image. Processing and concept will likely involve some more work in surrealism. I have a lot of images in my head that I want to get out there and most of them are quite surreal.
Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer
▲
lostlosangeles: Jason Knight on Flickr
Description: Photography by Jason Knight
Medium: Photography
Online & Contact Information: Portfolio; @lostlosangeles on Twitter
