Pilar Corrias Welcomes Painter Pierre Knop at Basel

Pierre Knop knows how to archive. The Cologne-based painter has a lifetime of memories stored on USB sticks and print-outs in his studio, ready to be realised into his next electric painting.

In May 2024, Knop joined London-based gallery Pilar Corrias, credited for kick-starting the careers of Christina Quarles and Tschabalala Self. To mark this new alliance, Pilar brings the painter's work to Art Basel (13–16 June 2024).

Silvester Baptiste (2024) is a striking example of the willowy landscapes and abstract washes that have dominated his practice since graduating Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 2013 under the watchful eye of tutors Andreas Schulze and Katharina Grosse.

Ahead of Basel, Ocula sat down with Knop who introduced his Basel debut, the importance of mindset, and the Albrecht Dürer book he's loving.

Could you introduce the painting Silvester Baptiste (2024) on view at Art Basel?

It started very organically. I am always taking photos and have an enormous archive of the material in my studio in Cologne. This particular photograph was taken when I was picking my son up from kindergarten. He is playing in the water. As a parent, seeing this very little boy standing and splashing around was a lovely moment.

The original photograph was taken on a grey rainy day in Cologne. The resultant painting is obviously miles from that. Do you find your use of colour quite an intuitive process?

I'm sure you have the same beautiful winter in England as we do in Germany, but it's awfully dark and wet. While I adored this photograph in terms of the composition, I didn't want to reproduce it in the grey and brown mood of winter.

My colour choices are intuitive. There were so many painters, the Post-Impressionists, for example, who asked how we can push boundaries. And I had this André Derain painting, The Turning Road, L'Estaque (1906), stuck in my head when I was working on these red trees.

But really, it's trial and error. The beauty of art is that you can't plan it. It's a very organic process that can produce a lot of mistakes, but one hopes, a lot of good things too. It's a rich moment when you can't control everything.

Do you make preliminary sketches?

I don't have the patience to make studies or sketches. I go to the canvas directly; every painting is a study and a sketch in itself.

You studied under Andreas Schulze and Katharina Grosse–two artists who, like yourself, use colour very freely. What did you learn from them?

I think the richest relationships allow for a certain distance between your work and that of your professors.

Andreas is a very interesting guy and I adore the humour in his work. He's a very important figure in the Cologne painting scene; he was the first artist to work with Sprüth Magers, the biggest gallery in Germany at the time, and one that took a very positive, pro-feminist approach.

While Schulze is more of a shy guy, Katharina Grosse walks into a room, and you think: This person's got charisma; a real German intellectual alpha female artist.

Katharina attended art school in the 1980s and for women, it was very hard. Someone like Katharina had to stand their ground. So she brought this strong mindset into the art school and it was great for us to talk to someone who is a fighter.

How did this mindset play into the artist you are today?

I am firmly convinced that good conversation, an open mindset, and mental strength can make you a good artist; or at least creates a strong foundation to be one. I learned that from Schulze and Grosse, and it was these lessons that I passed on to my students when working as a visiting professor at Kunstakademie Karlsruhe.

That, and to never compare yourself to others. It sounds so trivial and easy and if you tell this to a young student, they would say: Yeah, of course. But in the end, all artists compare themselves and there's so much jealousy. But jealousy is a dark energy and it rips you apart.

And who do you look to in art history?

There are some people whom I really adore but you don't see their influence in my paintings—Philip Guston or James Ensor, and the New York School, of course. I'm like a traveller. I go back to people and say hi, but never connect them to my work.

Your paintings give off the abstract washes and strong pools of colour that we see in Peter Doig's work. Does he play into your research?

I sometimes saw Peter at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he was a professor. I am sure if we sat down and talked about painting, we would find connections to the same people such as Edvard Munch and the Post-Impressionists.

But all this goes way back to 17th-century Dutch painting. If you visit Old Master collections and look at 17th-century landscapes, you'll see their colour and compositional influence on the Realists and Post-Impressionists. Everything is connected, and so someone like Peter, we just love the same people.

What are you reading at the moment?

I'm reading too much actually. I jump from book to book and it's vastly strange stuff—from scientific books on nutrition to books on history—a subject I've loved since school, being half-French, half-German.

I'm currently reading the latest book on the German painter Albrecht Dürer titled Dürer's Lost Masterpiece (2023) written by a German art historian, Ulinka Rublack. She paints a broad picture of his life while delving into Dürer's relationship with his clients, which I find fascinating. —[O]