Sepulchre, 2026
PLA, concrete, printed ink and acrylic on canvas, pine wood, staples, PVA, water, screw, tealights
49 x 213 x 10 cm
Sepulchre (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.
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.
This particular work references The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb (1520 – 1522), a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger depicting the life-size body of Jesus Christ lying in his tomb. The work is known for its elongated dimensions. Sepulchre mimics these dimensions, with the “inner” part of the piece being approximately 183cm, Bicknell-Knight’s exact height, effectively becoming a coffin, or sepulchre, of sorts. At the top of the work there are 33 sections to place tealights, referencing the approximate age that Christ died; an age that Bicknell-Knight is nearing.
Sepulchre includes a clock documented within The Sims 2 (2004), a video game where you control the lives of virtual people, customarily modelled after your own family, in a simulated copy of the physical world. Bicknell-Knight has spent countless hours playing the games from The Sims series as a child, and has previously made work with, and about, the games in the series, for example in Autonomy 2.0 (2016).
Sepulchre has been included in the following exhibitions:
– Scaffolding, curated by Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo. At Draakon Gallery, Tallinn, EE, 5th November – 6th December 2026.