Knowles' proximity to post-war colour field painters is exemplified in the application of pigment in Dark Woods. An important turning point in her career came at the 1962 Emma Lake Artists' Workshop in northern Saskatchewan, where the critic Clement Greenberg encouraged her to remain committed to landscape painting at a time when hard-edge abstraction occupied a central place in modernist criticism. Knowles later worked alongside Kenneth Noland, whom influenced her approach towards applying paint in thin veils of shimmering hues. Over the following decades, Knowles developed a painterly approach grounded in established compositional traditions while informed by the direct observation and fluid handling associated with plein air painting. Her work reflected a sustained engagement with the landscapes of Western Canada, where she was born and spent most of her life, exploring the formal possibilities of colour, light, and spatial relationships through close attention to the particularities of place.