John Ward Knox
Untitled, 2011

John Ward Knox
Untitled, 2011
The Chartwell Collection purchased this untitled work, from the Moving on Looking exhibition at Auckland’s Ivan Anthony Gallery, in 2011. The work is seemingly quiet and unassuming. Yet the tension between the two banal objects that the work is made of, is captivating. The minimalist sculpture hovers at a seemingly impossible moment, and in doing so creates a beautiful tension; a dance-like balance between two everyday objects. Somehow Ward Knox has struck equilibrium, yet there is no evidence to give his trick away – there do not appear to be any nails or glue holding the two objects in place. The feet of the chair lift off the ground, with the chair tilting back playfully on the angled cane. The careful configuration of the two objects creates interesting mirroring, angles and repeated forms. The work is both still and uncanny in that it questions the absence of the human body from the equation – where is the weary body to make use of the furniture? Perhaps the answer lies in the quaint feel of yesteryear that hangs about the objects – a bent-wood chair and a curved cane for gnarled hands and spines. This piece maintains the sensitive, understated and minimal approach that has come to characterise Ward Knox’s practice.

Untitled, 2011, John Ward Knox

John Ward Knox
Artworks

Sione Faletau
Ha’amonga ‘a Maui, 2015

Erwin Wurm
One Minute Sculpture, 2005/2014

Joanna Langford
Calling the Deep, 2015

Abigail Reynolds
National Gallery 1974/2000, 2012

Matt Calderwood
Untitled, 2016

Shaun Gladwell
Storm Sequence, 2000

Richard Maloy
Big Yellow, 2013

John Ward Knox
Untitled, 2011

Rob Hood
Big Bull Market, 2016

Catherine Yass
High Wire, 2008

Claire Fontaine
Foreigners Everywhere (Southern Māori), 2015

Peter Trevelyan
Circularism, 2016

Zina Swanson
Something In Waiting, 2016

Regan Gentry
Christchurch-church-church, 2004
