Modern Masters Mashed Up At Palm Springs Art Show

Color Meets Street Art

Palm Springs-based artist Tysen Knight has worked worked across various environments and mediums when it comes to his art: beautifying cityscapes with street art, making documentary films (his film “The Art Of Hustle: Street Art Documentary,” won the Best Feature Film Award 2018 at the Oregon Documentary Film Festival), and painting on canvas.

While Knight is perhaps most famous for his murals and very public street art like his partnership with the Palm Springs Public Art Commission (PSPAC) that turned street benches into works of art, he’s recently turned his attention to more works on canvas. Knight, like many throughout the pandemic, found himself with a lot of time on his hands—time to experiment.

What resulted is Knight’s collection of paintings on canvas all done with Dunn-Edwards paints, entitled "Masterpiece MashUp," a reimagining by Knight of paintings from artists like Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. Knight, who typically uses Suprema products for his art on canvas explains, “I’m always inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Pablo Picasso. I decided to create a combination of these muses into several paintings and add in my [signature] artistic style to these creations, as well.”

What was a project that started out of pure inspiration inevitably grew into a formal exhibition, which Knight says, means the world to him because, as the artist explains further in an interview with KESQ Channel 3 Palm Springs, “At the time I didn’t know why I was painting them.” The collection of works were recently exhibited at the Palm Springs Cultural Center. It’s through this exhibition that Knight says he has been “fortunate enough to gain some new collectors of my artwork.”

Palm Springs has long been an inviting canvas for artists looking for creative freedom. In fact, that’s how the area became the  mid-century architectural mecca that it is today. The area’s forward-thinking lent itself to architects exploring new architectural styles in the 1950s. Palm Springs has, in recent years, become a magnet for new and varied creative exploits, a wave of art and artists in which Knight is very much entrenched.

Interested in other ways artists are taking Dunn-Edwards paints from canvas to public spaces? Check out Las Vegas-based muralist Eric Vozzola’s nature-inspired artwork.

All images provided courtesy of Tysen Knight