The land and the body inhabit Mark Armijo McKnight’s black and white photographs with a mystic alchemy. Visually, the two are intertwined: a torso, for example, is impossible to distinguish from a dune, or the clouds, from the cigarette smoke puffed out of a mouth. The New York-based artist, however, is strongly invested in the emotional chemistry of two forms of tactility. This meditative harmony of the earth and the skin meanders throughout McKnight’s new exhibition, Decreation, at The Whitney Museum where nudes seep into the American west panorama. 'The landscape is a site of catharsis and meaning-making, and the earth is the protagonist,' McKnight tells Wallpaper* about his pictures. He believes in the 'psychological dimension,' of an either barren or lush landscape, 'which wouldn’t otherwise be in an image.'
