Graham Parks
January 6 - February 19, 2005
Graham Parks' reductive paintings of treetops and wooded walkways hover between representation and abstraction. Silhouetted leaves and arching branches, as well as the spaces in-between, become fragments in picture puzzles that disappear when close and coalesce from afar. The patterns of light and shadow help denote a place and define a space; yet remain on the surface as distinctive identities of their own. For all their visual activity, Parks' paintings remain surprisingly serene.
Beginning with photographs of places Parks has been, from Spokane to Kyoto, he polarizes and simplifies the images to their sparest essentials. He meticulously masks and isolates each shape and paints them and the surrounding space with an even clarity, at times using blended gradations to reference atmosphere, similar to Japanese prints and watercolors. From vibrant reds and pinks to poetic pastels, or from black and white to dark on dark, Parks' paintings may be of the dawn or dusk in his clean edged world of formal resolve and contemplative reverie.
Graham Parks lives in New York City, and has exhibited in galleries throughout the United States and abroad.
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