Atlas LR Knox

The Downtrodden Path of a Shadow Artist.

Please join us for Art Walk featuring new Paintings, Sculpture, Poetry and Performance.

5-9 PM

Make.Shift Art Space

306 Flora

Bellingham WA

98225

NO BOOZE // NO DRUGS // NO JERKS

Artist Statement

The Downtrodden Path of a Shadow Artist has been a series of broken mirrors, one after another. Every lie that was told to me about my self worth, what I was capable of, how big my dreams could actually be, or what I had to say even mattered all, shattered. Through the formative years of my 20’s I chased after toxic love, I was deep in my alcohol addiction and struggled with my gender and had no context or community support throughout this era of my life. I was surrounded by talented artists whose focus was/is executing realism skill and there was no room for art outside of that scope. For such a long time I had a desire to create and have always been a poet, but the lack of encouragement stunted my potential to expand. The tragedy is that I believed it for a time. I genuinely held the notion that to make “good art,” was to go to art school and focus solely towards realism no matter what medium. That all changed once I made the decision on January 10th, 2022 to stop numbing my pain and got sober from drinking. I lost a great deal of friends where I was living at the time. I didn’t know any sober queer folks to relate my struggles to. The only thing that kept me alive during those first 6 months was painting and my poetry. It was like the floodgates were let open. I couldn’t hold back my creativity any longer and it was my way of processing all the suppressed emotions I've kept all my life. Here you’ll see my paintings in chronological order starting in 2022 to now. I have a deep desire for storytelling and poetry has been the base of all the art I create. For me, being a shadow artist not only means that I was cast out and cast aside but rather I’m not afraid to make art from those dark vulnerable places we all hide from the world any more. When I was a child, I was terrified of the dark and riddled with constant nightmares/night terrors. I would scream and no one would come to comfort me. In a cold sweat I would watch the shadows turn into creatures and let my mind run wild with whatever mystical stories I’d conjure. Those nights were my most terrifying and some of the only times where I had the space to liberate my imagination. As I continue being interdisciplinary with my art, it is imperative that I keep little Atlas close. He was beyond brave and deserves the space alongside me now as I continue to tell our story.

Atlas L.R. Knox Biography

I’m a transgender country boy a long way from home. I grew up in the hollers of East Tennessee. My grandad, a southern baptist preacher of 50 years, a farm that supplied most of our food, and a simple home nestled deep in the woods paint the scene of my childhood.

The way of god was the center of my life up until my mid teen years. The classic, women do as they’re told, gay people burn in hell and love the sinner/hate the sin was our mantra. Though my late mother had it way worse than I did, she still allowed me to express myself despite her more strict upbringing. I was fortunate to have that unruly emo phase of the early 2000’s and was able to listen to the music I wanted to. Just not at the grandparent’s house. Some would say I didn’t have much of a childhood and grew up way too fast. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a choice being the eldest sibling and cousin of 6. It was my job that everyone did their part by picking weeds out of the garden beds, breaking beans, or else they had to pick out their switch. Though violence was a part of my life, I did have some good times. I essentially was raised at Dollywood and had season passes every year. Any time I managed for myself was spent blasting Tori Amos’s albums, Little Earthquakes/Hotel Choir Girl in my little discman, or me desperately trying to convince my cousins the stories I made up about the fairies in the backwoods were real. I’ve always been a painter (since the age of 4) and a poet (since the age of 8) but my drunken ex-step dad forced me to focus on sports rather than the arts. Fast forward to 2008, after my late mother divorced my ex-step dad he let the home go into foreclosure. Leaving my mother, sister and I homeless. We bounced around couches, slept in the car until my ma saved up enough cash to where we had a roof again, almost a year later. During that time I really learned what it meant to hustle. We moved to the city of Knoxville where we had neighbors who were also dirt poor and struggling. My ma one month, spent all the money on our food stamp card on seeds and plants and my ass got to work establishing a victory garden for all of us. Of course I had help from my friends, but it was my baby.

Fast forward to 2012 and I’m yearning for freedom, the freedom to only worry about myself. I started hitch-hiking and traveling with friends to camp out at various National Parks for long stretches of time. I also got caught up in Rainbow Gathering life, (the more committed serious side like running the kitchens and not drinking in the parking lots). By the time I come home to really settle down it’s 2017. I moved back in with my ma after a hard break up and spent the last 6 months of her life helping her with her garden under the same roof again. I’m so grateful I have those memories to hold onto. The loss of her furthered my drug and drinking addiction that I had since I was 16. I couldn’t stay in Knoxville or I was going to drown. So I moved to North Carolina. I tried figuring out who I was through my drinking, various heartbreaks/breakups, shitty clicky queer spaces, and labor intensive farm work. However, it was until 2020 when we had to quarantine, when the noise got quieter and for the first time, I looked at myself deep in the mirror. I slowly came to realize my gender nonconformity, and all the grief that comes with that. (I was about 27 years old) It took another 2 years for me to finally put the bottle down and since then I’ve been on the journey of really trying to love myself through my art.

The art you see here is my, what we call in church a “home revival,” restoring my heart’s calling. I want folks to know it’s never too late to come back to the thing you always loved. This world is cruel and life happens, but I promise the thing you want most is patiently waiting for you. Let my brief story remind you that resilience and self love are necessary. When you lead from your heart, great change and inspiration conspire.

Art Walk: Atlas LR Knox "The Downtrodden Path of a Shadow Artist"