You may not be familiar with the name Tysen Knight, but you’ve probably seen his distinctive works – like the colorful benches along Palm Canyon Drive and Museum Way in downtown Palm Springs.
Knight was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and moved with his family to New Jersey at age five. His interest in art began early, and his work was quickly recognized—at age 15, he won the NAACP ACT-SO Achievement Program Award of Merit. Knight’s award-winning artwork? A painting of an African queen.
While many families at the time were pushing their children to go to college, Knight decided that wasn’t his path. His high school offered cosmetology as an elective, and after graduating, he became a trained hairdresser. He enjoyed the artistic aspects of cutting hair and had a successful career doing it for 20 years, even attending the Super Bowl and cutting the Philadelphia Eagles’ hair. He also used his hairdressing skills on film sets and in music videos, and occasionally appeared on camera. So he stayed on the “edges of creativity,” as he calls it – but his brush was never far away.
In 2011, Knight was working at a trendy Los Angeles shop called Legends on Fairfax Avenue near Melrose Avenue when a friend suggested he move to Palm Springs. He did, but soon realized there were few hairdressing jobs there, so he threw himself into his art. His savings covered rent on a small apartment. Every day, he would get up and sketch on a pad he bought at Walmart. Knight bought old, inexpensive paintings that people had donated to Goodwill and Angel View, had the frames restored, and replaced the artwork with his own sketches. He then approached local consignment shops with the work. The items started selling, which (along with his savings) kept him afloat for about four years. Then, in 2015, Knight landed a lucrative job at a hair salon.
In 2016, he had the idea to make a documentary short film about street artists in Palm Springs. The result was The Art of Hustle: Street Art Documentary. A last-minute addition to the film, Skratch, introduced Knight to the world of homeless artists, which led to his second documentary, The Art of Hustle: Documentary about homeless street artists. Both films won multiple awards.
Although homeless people can be very reserved and suspicious of strangers, Knight approached them from a creative side. He found his Sacramento-based film editor online on Thumbtack; all their work and communication was done virtually, and although they never met in person, the two have become very good friends. Knight said there were a lot of synchronicities when he had a “crazy idea” to make films: Everything just seemed to fit together.
Teddy Grouya, director of the AmDocs Film Festival held each spring at the Palm Springs Cultural Center, screened Knight’s film about street art in 2018 and his documentary about homeless artists in 2019. Russell Pritchard, then chairman of the Palm Springs Public Arts Commission, saw the films and connected with Knight on Facebook, leading to the colorful benches and murals Knight has created throughout the city.
A third documentary film entitled The Tysen Knight Experience – The Art of Manifestation and Purposeis currently in the works. This time it’s a family affair: Knight’s parents star in the film and his 28-year-old son, a filmmaker, is handling the editing.
The film tells the story of how Knight’s parents took him to an art exhibition for the first time at the age of 10. It featured works by a well-known African-American artist named Ernie Barnes, whose work was featured on the television show Good times. Young Tysen was fascinated by a particular painting and insisted his parents buy it. Although his parents were initially put off by the price tag of over $300, they saw how obsessed their son was with it and somehow knew it would be a key to his future. They gave in and bought it – and the rest is history.
I asked him about the obstacles he faced.
“The biggest obstacle in my career was getting recognition for my work,” he said. “When I started out, there weren’t many successful African-Americans in the art world, so race was occasionally an issue. I also found that people like their artists to be ‘native,’ and being from the East Coast, that was a problem. I just put blinders on and kept going.”
Knight enjoys hosting live paint-by-numbers art events in his community. Each participant is given paper with the outline of the image — such as a vase of flowers. They then color the image with the colors of their choice. He has done this for many events, including Variety Children’s Charity of the Desert, Taste of Tennis in Indian Wells, and public schools. An art collector friend has organized an upcoming trip for him to Belize to paint with children there.
Knight is a lifelong Buddhist. His philosophy is simple: “When a project fails or negative thoughts enter my mind, I take a moment to figure out how to turn it all into something positive. One of my favorite quotes is, ‘Energy is never lost, it is only transferred.'”
Knight, now 48, says he sometimes thinks it would have been fun to have been born about ten years earlier so he could have experienced the New York art scene at the time of Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. There were no social media platforms back then; artists really had to be “out there” to be noticed by the mainstream community.
Knight describes his style as a mix of pop art, fine art and street art – or, as he calls it, “pop urban art.” With his career flourishing, he says his main goal now is to help others, especially young people, discover the artist within themselves. He has established the Tysen Knight Scholarship Fund, which awards $500 to $1,000 toward college or art school.
A pop-urban artist, documentary filmmaker, father of two, teacher and humanitarian, Knight is definitely someone to know. His mantra is simple: “Be inspired.”
For more information about Tysen Knight, visit www.tysenknight.com.
Bonnie Gilgallon hosts a weekly podcast called The desert sceneavailable at radio111.com/the-desert-scene.html. She also writes theatre reviews for the Independent. Email her at [email protected].
