E.C. KNIGHTINGALE
Artist. Boat Builder. Storyteller.
LOVE
LOVE is a new series about the small, quiet ways we experience love, not through grand gestures or declarations, but through the simple moments that tell us someone matters.
The works are built from layers of photographic imagery, paper, acrylic, plaster, and distressed surfaces. Images and words are added, obscured, scraped back, and sometimes nearly lost, leaving fragments behind.
Each piece explores a different expression or understanding of love through words, symbols, and layered imagery. Some works may exist as companions, while others stand on their own.
This is an ongoing series.
LOVE Series: LOVE is when you’re glad someone exists.
Mixed media on plywood, 38" x 48"
Paper, plaster, acrylic, epoxy, and final UV marine finish. Includes photographic imagery (Photo Credit: Cher Knightingale).
Image subject:
A solitary figure, partially revealed through layers of image, text, and distressed surface.
This piece explores one of the simplest expressions of love: the quiet happiness of knowing someone is in the world. The figure and words emerge through layers of paper, plaster, acrylic, and epoxy, then are scraped back, obscured, and revealed again. Fragments remain visible while others nearly disappear into the black surface, allowing the image and the words to feel discovered rather than stated.
The work is finished with a marine-grade UV coating, giving the layered surface both physical depth and lasting durability.
LOVE Series: LOVE is knowing you matter to someone.
Mixed media on plywood, 38" x 48"
Paper, plaster, acrylic, epoxy, and final UV marine finish. Includes photographic imagery (Photo Credit: Cher Knightingale).
Image subject:
A solitary figure, partially revealed through layers of image, text, and a pale, distressed surface.
This piece explores the other side of love: the quiet reassurance of knowing your existence matters to someone. The figure and words emerge through layers of paper, plaster, acrylic, and epoxy, then are softened, obscured, and revealed again. Fragments remain visible while others nearly disappear beneath the white surface, giving the work a veiled, almost memory-like quality.
Where the companion black work considers the simple happiness of knowing someone exists, this piece turns the thought inward. It is about knowing that somewhere, to someone, you matter.
The work is finished with a marine-grade UV coating, giving the layered surface both physical depth and lasting durability.
LOVE Series: LOVE is a saved seat.
Mixed media on plywood, 38" x 48"
Paper, plaster, acrylic, epoxy, and final UV marine finish.
Image subject:
A seated figure beside an empty chair, drawn across a layered, chalkboard-like surface.
This piece imagines a chalkboard used to explain love. A figure, an empty chair, and a few words offer a simple thought: love is keeping a place for someone.
The image was drawn in chalk approximately twenty-five times, with each drawing leaving traces of the figure and chairs. White paint later filled the lines, carrying these earlier marks into the finished surface. The overlapping outlines suggest a board returned to again and again, where previous explanations remain faintly visible beneath the latest.
The empty chair holds the thought at the centre of the piece. Someone may be absent, expected, or simply held in mind. Saving their seat becomes a quiet way of saying that they belong, that their presence matters, and that there is a place for them beside you.
The work is finished with a marine-grade UV coating, giving the layered surface both physical depth and lasting durability.
LOVE Series: LOVE is complex.
Mixed media on plywood, 48" x 48"
Paper, plaster, acrylic, epoxy, and final UV marine finish. Includes handwritten mathematical notation and symbolic imagery.
Image subject:
A mathematical equation for love, partially revealed beneath layers of paint, plaster, text, and distressed surface.
This piece explores the attempt to understand something that may never be completely understood. Presence, care, trust, vulnerability, generosity, expectation, memory, and time are brought together in a mathematical formula for love. The equation is real and internally coherent, but much of it has been obscured, fragmented, and nearly lost beneath the surface.
The work is conceived as though the formula has been discovered beneath layers of an old wall. Handwritten equations, diagrams, and notes emerge in fragments, suggesting that someone once tried, with great seriousness, to solve love. Some parts remain legible. Others disappear completely, leaving the viewer to decide what can be understood and what must simply be felt.
The surface is built through layers of paper, plaster, acrylic, and epoxy, then scraped back, covered, and revealed again. The work is finished with a marine-grade UV coating, giving the layered surface both physical depth and lasting durability.
