Mark McKnight

"Decreation" is an ongoing series of black-and-white photographs McKnight has been working on since 2018. The subject matter includes bodies, and otherworldly landscapes. The photographs are high contrast, often underexposed and in dramatic natural lighting with details in shadows deliberately rendered illegible through the printing process. In the photograph titled "Eric Voiding" a half-naked man sits on a rock, simultaneously urinating into a river and peeling his shirt off, over his face. The title "Decreation" is derived from French mystic Simone Weil, and describes an act of self effacement with the intention to connect with a divine power.[6][10]

Hunger for the Absolute was an exhibition staged by McKnight in galleries in Los Angeles and New York.[11][12] The exhibitions, which featured large format silver gelatin prints at various sizes, describe nude figures copulating amidst rolling hills of the artist's native Southern California.[13][14] This work was often described by critics for its references to the history of photography. Christopher Knight for example wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "A list of the notable photographers referenced in McKnight’s pictures would include William Henry Fox Talbot, Alfred Stieglitz, Robert Mapplethorpe and Laura Aguilar — 150 years of the medium at once embraced, absorbed and reworked. The frankly symbolic, formally attuned, ethereally abstract and potently political all merge."[5]

The artist produced his first monograph Heaven is a Prison in 2020. The book contains over 90 photographs of Landscapes, clouds, and two male protagonists who engage in BDSM sex within the austere chaparral of Southern California.[3][4] The book was co-published by Loose Joints and Light Work and received the 2020 Light Work Photobook Award.[15]