Artwork copyright Michael Knutson. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2023.

Prometheus, 1985

Michael Knutson
American (born 1951)

Location: Washington State Arts Commission, Olympia

About the Artwork

Prometheus is an abstract painting by artist Michael Knutson. It is part of a series about Greek heroes facing tragic fates. The hero Prometheus steals fire and gives it to man. For this, the gods punished him eternally by chaining him to a cliff where every day an eagle tears out his liver. Knutson notes, "The moment depicted is one of great disorientation and dislocation, similar to that experienced by the viewer in moving across the fractured spatial structure of the painting." To create this structure, Knutson overlaid eight linear and curved grids. He notes, "Then, with a story and composition roughly in mind I set about finding the images in the tangle of lines. This both stimulates my imagination (like finding images in cloud or star formations) and focuses my attention by restricting possibilities."

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Washington State Patrol.

About the Artist

Michael Knutson is a Portland, Oregon-based artist and professor. Born in Everett, Washington, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Washington in 1972. He received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University in Connecticut in 1975. He has served as a Professor of Art at Reed College in Portland since 1982.