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| A Single Vine Invades the 70-foot Canopy, Kinderhook, NY acrylic on re-used drop cloth |
For one, he adeptly works in a wide variety of media –
drawing, painting, sculpture, and printmaking among them. Few artists can pull
this off (two examples that come to mind: Michelangelo and Picasso), but Parker
does it with aplomb.
Parker also works at wildly different scales, from
quasi-miniature to monumental. Additionally, his style can range from detailed realism
to total abstraction (including forays into the teasingly humorous), all of
which he does, again, with apparent ease.
Finally, Parker has a habit of engaging with a subject,
wringing the life out of it (in a good way!), and then moving on to something entirely
different - yet another approach that few artists can successfully navigate and
most would be well advised to avoid.
Against these odds, Parker throws caution to the wind. And, though
there is a thread (I promise you) that binds it all together, I’m not sure that
is uppermost in his mind. He just seems to plow ahead with a relentless singularity
of focus.
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| Winter Birch, Mt. Merino, Hudson, NY acrylic on re-used drop cloth |
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| Indecisive, Chillmark, Mass. acrylic on re-used drop cloth |
People who know me well understand that I’m not a huge fan
of electronic media and their ubiquitous glowing screens – I’ve often said I’d rather just stare at a tree. Or I
could just stare at a Kingsley Parker painting of a tree. The best of them have
sufficient detail to hold hours of attention (as they clearly did for him).
These homages are carefully observed and obviously quite deeply felt. As I do,
he loves these fellow beings and is heartened by their presence in our world;
equally, he laments the threats they face as a result of our presence in theirs.
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| Thing 2 - Found wood, vines, used coffee filters, acrylic paint, wire, styrofoam, tar, hay, old bucket |
That he cares so much only adds to this success, because it
drives the work forward. Clearly a sensitive soul, Parker effectively applies
that sensitivity to the media he employs. Whether in delicately brushed
renderings of undersea fauna, carefully placed hills of tiny twigs representing
a clear cut, or hauntingly depicted midnight-dark forests, Parker’s technique
wins hearts and - there’s always hope – minds.
I’d only been vaguely aware of Parker before these two exhibitions, and I’m sorry it took so long, but it has most certainly been worth the wait. Check out more of his work at kingsleyparker.com.
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| Unclaimed Luggage - found luggage, used coffee filters, fabric |
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