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South African visual artist Alexander Knox

Alexander Knox

Cape Town | 3 artworks for sale

  • Shelter - Painting by Alexander Knox Shelter
    Painting / 70 x 95 cm
    R28 000
  • The Farmer - Painting by Alexander Knox The Farmer
    Painting / 70 x 95 cm
    R28 000
  • How We Live Now - Painting by Alexander Knox How We Live Now
    Painting / 70 x 95 cm
    R28 000
  • The Way We Live Now II - Painting by Alexander Knox
    The Way We Live Now II
    Painting / 70 x 95 cm
Alexander Knox paints familiar places that often feel just slightly unsettled.
At first glance, his work depicts recognisable scenes drawn from South African life. Rural landscapes, farm buildings, figures and open spaces appear throughout his paintings. Yet beneath the surface there is often a sense that something has shifted. The landscapes feel quieter. The spaces seem more isolated. The future feels uncertain.
This tension is what gives Knox's work its distinctive character.
Drawing on personal experience, observation and imagination, he creates paintings that sit somewhere between reality and memory. They are rooted in recognisable places, yet they often carry an atmosphere that feels reflective, melancholic and occasionally unsettling.

Painting a Changing World

Many of Knox's paintings explore the relationship between people and the environments they inhabit.
Farmhouses stand alone against vast skies. Figures appear small within expansive landscapes. Familiar structures become symbols of resilience, vulnerability or change.
Rather than documenting a specific place, Knox uses landscape as a way of reflecting on broader questions about belonging, isolation and the way communities evolve over time.
His work often speaks to the uncertainty that accompanies social and environmental change while remaining deeply connected to the realities of contemporary South African life.

Familiar Yet Unsettling

One of the most compelling aspects of Knox's work is its ability to balance comfort and unease.
The subjects are often familiar. A farmhouse, a road, a field or a solitary figure can evoke memories of places many South Africans recognise. Yet there is often an underlying tension within the composition that encourages a closer look.
This quality allows the paintings to operate on multiple levels. They can be appreciated for their atmosphere and technical skill, while also prompting reflection on the world we inhabit and the future we are creating.

Landscape as Narrative

For Knox, landscape is never simply a backdrop.
The environments he paints become active participants in the story. Weathered buildings, open spaces and traces of human activity suggest histories, relationships and lives that extend beyond the frame.
His paintings invite viewers to imagine what has happened before a scene and what might follow after it.

Collecting Alexander Knox

Collectors are often drawn to Alexander Knox's work because it combines strong visual storytelling with emotional depth. The paintings feel rooted in place while remaining open to interpretation.

StateoftheART is proud to present a curated selection of paintings by Alexander Knox.

Alexander Knox (b.1994) is a South African painter whose work explores landscape, memory and the changing relationship between people and place.

Drawing inspiration from rural environments and everyday observations, he creates paintings that balance realism with imagination. Familiar scenes become settings for broader reflections on belonging, uncertainty and the social and environmental pressures shaping contemporary life.His work is characterised by strong narrative elements and an atmosphere that is at once recognisable and quietly unsettling. Through landscape and figurative imagery, Knox creates paintings that encourage viewers to consider not only where we are, but where we may be heading.

His paintings are held in private collections in South Africa and internationally.

Selected Exhibitions:

2024
Group exhibition 'The Shipping Forecast' , StateoftheART Gallery, Cape Town

2021
Portrait Award top 40,  Rust en Vrede Gallery, Cape Town
Group exhibition 'National Identity',  curated by COart  in Barcelona, Spain

2019
Solo exhibition 'Utopia Has Been Cancelled', AVA Gallery, Cape Town
Sanlam Portrait Award Top 40,  Rust en Vrede Gallery, Cape Town

2017
Sanlam Portrait Award Top 40, Rust en Vrede Gallery, Cape Town
Art Africa Fair, Cape Town

2016
That Art Fair, Cape Town
Group exhibition at DF Contemporary, Cape Town
Group exhibition at Rust en Vrede Gallery, Durbanville
Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg

Which new trends or South African artists do you find inspiring at the moment?
Deborah Poynton, whom I have been compared to.

Which South African deceased artist do you most admire and why?
Walter Meyer, as he was so successful.

If you could only have one piece of art in your life, what would it be?
Caspar David Friedrich - Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

How did you get started? Did you always want to be an artist?
Art was my favourite subject in high school, but I didn't really have the ambition of becoming an artist until my final year at Ruth Prowse School of Art when my potential was unlocked.

Where do you get your inspiration for your work?
From playing post-apocalyptic video games such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl and Fallout 3.

Do you have any rituals or habits involving your art-making that you can tell us about?
Every piece involves shooting the subject, photoshopping them onto the background, priming the panel 3-5 times, then applying grids and outlines to the surface. My preferred technique is to work in layers from dark to light.

What do you like most about being an artist?
Doing what I want.

Do you have a favourite or most meaningful work?
Fading Light (2017), which was my first chiaroscuro painting.

What is your greatest achievement as an artist to date?
Entering the Sanlam Portrait Award for the first time in 2017 and making it into the top 40.

What are your aspirations for the future?
To have a solo exhibition and hopefully get into the Portrait Award top 5.