Tribute, 2026
PLA, concrete, PVA, water, tealights, screws, glue
68 x 52 x 52 cm
Tribute (2026) is part of an ongoing series of works by Bob Bicknell-Knight, collectively titled Altars (2024 – ongoing).
Altars is a series of wall-based paintings embedded within elaborate frames, revolving around time, video game worlds and control.
The altar series is made up of hybrid paintings of clocks from different video games. The works are hybrid paintings, beginning as digital photographs that Bicknell-Knight takes of clocks within different video games. The images are digitally edited before being printed onto canvas, stretched and painted onto with acrylic paint, with the offline artist’s hand interacting with the original digital image. The painting method explores the tension between the digital and physical sides of Bicknell-Knight’s practice and is a collaboration between his digital and physical working methods
The paintings are effectively clocks frozen in time, mimicking how time in video games is often fabricated and stretched, never usually corresponding to time within the physical world. These works are embedded within frames that have been digitally modelled, usually using Google Sketchup, an architectural modelling programme, 3D printed and covered in layers of concrete.
Concrete plays a central role in Bicknell-Knight’s practice, as both a material and a conceptual device. It is used to conceal the origins of his 3D printed works, masking their precision beneath a coarse, industrial surface. In doing so, the work resists immediate legibility, obscuring how it was made and complicating distinctions between digital and the physical space. Concrete introduces weight, permanence and a sense of history to these objects that originate in immaterial, virtual environments, grounding them within a material reality tied to labour, extraction and construction. The frames resemble and reference various elements referencing architecture, timekeeping and subtle religious symbolism tied to faith, power and control.
In Tribute’s case, however instead of a traditional frame, the sculptural part of the work resembles a chandelier, created utilising the same techniques as the wall-based sculptures in the series, hosting a series of hybrid paintings and several candles embedded within its structure.
Bicknell-Knight is interested in the history of the chandelier, what it signifies within contemporary society, but also how it has evolved and changed over the centuries. From crown-shaped hanging devices found in religious buildings in the 9th century, to simple wooden crosses with spikes for candles seen within the courts of European kings in the 15th century, the chandelier has had a varied history.
In later centuries they became increasingly elaborate, adorned with crystals or gold to signify wealth and power. Bicknell-Knight sees the current use of chandeliers as a certain idea of old or aged power, observed in religious spaces or stately homes. A preserved remnant of the past.
Much of his work deals with time, control and decay, with wealth and power being tools which people use to control and manipulate others. By producing chandeliers in a similar style to his wall-based works, he is continuing this ongoing investigation and interest in the above themes, with a particular relation to video games and how time is experienced within virtual space when contrasted with the physical world. The chandeliers are functional, with lit candles, yet are relics of a bygone era, archaeological finds from a future past, or perhaps a past future.
Accompanying the frozen clocks within the series are lit candles, transforming the works into functional time pieces, being randomly replaced during a given exhibition period. In some cases, instead of live candles, electric candles have been used when exhibiting the works.
In a stark contrast to other works in the series, Tribute does not feature a clock from a video game, only the empty spaces where hybrid paintings were perhaps included in the past.
BOB BICKNELL-KNIGHT 