Snuffer (Staff), 2026
PLA, concrete, printed ink and acrylic on canvas, pine wood, staples, PVA, water, screws
200 x 26 x 26 cm
Snuffer (Staff) (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 the case of Snuffer (Staff), however, instead of a traditional frame, the sculptural part of the work resembles a staff of sorts, which is a functional snuffer: a device used to “snuff”, or extinguish, a candle. Snuffer (Staff) is used to extinguish the chandelier-like works by Bicknell-Knight, as well as other works in the Altar series that are installed in hard-to-reach areas.
Snuffer (Staff) includes three different clocks documented within different video games. The first clock is from The Sims 3 (2009), 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. The second clock is from Life is Strange (2015), where you control a young woman who has the ability to rewind time. The third clock is from Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (2016), an adventure game focused around hunting for a long-lost treasure.
Snuffer (Staff) has been included in the following exhibitions:
– Scaffolding, curated by Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo. At Draakon Gallery, Tallinn, EE, 5th November – 6th December 2026.