John Knuth

Knuth devised a truly unique process to create his latest works, one that begins with mail-ordering hundreds of thousands of maggots. These are placed in a specially built enclosure consisting of two facing canvases encased in netting and are allowed to develop into mature houseflies. Knuth’s flies feed on a steady diet of sugar water infused with acrylic paint, which they continually ingest and regurgitate over the course of two to three months. These tiny regurgitations cover the canvases in a pointillist haze inspired by the smog of Los Angeles. The artist relishes the unpredictable outcomes of these fly works, likening the flies’ organic chaos to the hectic nature of the modern urban environment. The works are landscapes that explore the boundary between beauty and decay, and the line between attraction and revulsion.