Michael parkes butterfly effect
Faith on the part of the spectator, who has to suspend disbelief that this two-dimensional construct is actually living and breathing in three.
Michael parkes biography
And faith on the part of the artist, in that he must believe so intensely in his own creation that even the most fantastic beast is endowed with a credible anatomy, the most flawless beauty given somehow that touch of humanity which compels complete acceptance. And moreover, made us all feel welcome to it. Which is probably a more difficult task than it seems.
Until very recently, the outside world has not been too susceptible to fantasy. Only if it has been decked out in the trappings of science fiction, as in the first Star Wars trilogy, has it seemed vaguely respectable and adult in, possibly, a schoolboyish sort of way to appreciate it.
Its references are all to do with myth and legend, taking their place in a land, or rather a firmament, where otherworldly exquisites mingle with fabulous beasts in a prelapsarian paradise. Not, in other words, the fantasy world of Terminator , or even Silent Running , but something more to the understanding of those who appreciate the Lord of the Rings or Narnia trilogies.
At first glance, it is difficult to imagine that Parkes began his public career as an Abstract Expressionist. Less so when you take into consideration the fact that Parkes has always been quite comfortable in his own time — or at least, known how to deal with it. When he was a student, at the University of Kansas in the s, all his teachers were of an age to have been dazzled by the first manifestations of Abstract Expressionism in New York, and to hand on their sense of wonder at it all to their pupils.
And from the beginning Parkes was aware of and responsive to the often-overlooked mystical side of the movement. The fluttering, whirling calligraphy of Jackson Pollock or the monumental shapes of Robert Motherwell aspire, in their Zen sparseness and directness, to capture the essence. As Arshile Gorky and Willem de Kooning moved closer to abstraction, their earlier subject matter left luminous traces in their work, as though they were still painting creatures and objects — but just not quite creatures and objects as we have ever known them.
But if that makes the transitions in his art sound easy, it is far wide of the mark. He began with one immense advantage: he could draw even before he could read and write, and even as a small child, he was uniquely well qualified, when he did the classic childhood thing of thinking, and then drawing lines round his thoughts, to come up with something that even tiresome, unimaginative adults could recognise and appreciate.
He was an only child, which often leads to children being dreamy and introspective, especially if their family lives in a small community with not much social life going on..
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The town where Parkes was raised, Canalou, Missouri, had fewer than inhabitants,but it did have a school, where reading and art were encouraged. And it did have a Last Picture Show -type movie theatre, even if it showed mostly a diet of Hopalong Cassidy Westerns and Z-level monster movies which it would be flattering to call science fiction.
Nonetheless, Parkes managed to be inspired by at least one of the latter, if not many of the former. He was carried away, imaginatively rather than literally, by the It that Came from Outer Space , and based a lot of his own fantasies on this shaky cardboard Creature. He was amazed when he viewed the film again in later years to see how totally tatty and unbelievable it was, and regarded his former enchantment with it as a triumph of the human imagination over very heavy odds.
Plus the fact that he was nine when he saw it, and so had already experienced his life-transforming first visit to an art museum, when his mother drove him nine hours each way on the road to the nearest, in faraway St Louis, in the justified belief that now, aged eight, he was old enough to appreciate it. Whether they were all that keen on his becoming a fulltime, professional artist is another matter — but then, whose parents are?
At least, they did not stand in his way, when he determined that the only way forward for him was to go to art school. And anyway, he did not elect to go to some airy-fairy art school, but to pursue a degree in a serious academic institution, where he could study Art History as well as the practice of Art itself.
This meant that he would have the sort of qualification which allowed him to teach, a much more solid and reliable way of making a living than just painting. And that, for some four years, he did: he took a good degree, and went straight on from graduation to become, first, an instructor in graphic techniques at Kent University, Ohio, then on to a better job at a university in Florida.
Not only that, but he exhibited and had a fair measure of acceptance as a painter. He specializes in painting, stone lithography and sculpture. Parkes' work is widely available in the form of self published mass production poster prints and nine published books. Parkes studied graphic art and painting at the University of Kansas.
His unique style evolved in isolation, after a period in which he gave up the practice of art altogether and went to India in search of philosophical illumination. Early on, he painted in the generally abstract expressionist style common among his teachers. Michael Parkes American painter Date of Birth: Contact About Privacy.
Billy Childish. Sophie Gengembre Anderson. Steltman Galleries has the posters available. Excerpt from the interview by Suzanne Graham with Michael Parkes. Printing an edition takes a daunting amount of time and energy.
Michael parkes book
The artist is the constant creative element in the process, adapting, changing the image, reacting to problems as they arise, making artistic decisions every step of the way. Printing a lithograph is a genuinely creative process, involving a myriad of artistic decisions that in various stages can substantially change the image on the paper.
With contemporary photo lithography, by contrast, one is really talking not about a creative process but about reproduction by mechanical means. Photo lithography is the process used to print books, magazines and posters.
Michael parkes art: Michael Parkes (born October 12, in Sikeston, Missouri) is an American-born artist living in Spain who is best known for work in the areas of fantasy art and magic realism. [1] He specializes in painting, stone lithography and sculpture. He also creates limited-edition Giclée images.
An artist can produce an initial image in any medium - oil, watercolor, drawing - take the work to a good printer, have it photographed, and then it's effectively out of the artist's hands. The artist or anyone only has to approve one proof, and then the press can reproduce any number of copies, from two to two million. Then the copies can be signed and numbered, and it's all called a limited edition!
These reproductions are often of very high quality, but they are nonetheless only reproductions. The artist's involvement and creativity stopped before the printing process began. Michael Parkes designed and printed his lithographs in Switzerland.
Michael parkes biography wikipedia
Although many artists have turned to the easier zinc or aluminium plates, Michael Parkes prefered the use of stones. He considerd the million years old Solnhofen stones he uses for his lithographs to be an integral part of the creative process. The process starts with drawing the image on the stone by using a greasy lithographic pencil.
This usually takes three to twelve days, depending on the size and complexity of the image. The main problem is that mistakes cannot be erased. Small corrections can be made with a sharp knife, but if major corrections are needed, it is necessary to start again on a new stone. After the basic design is drawn on the stone, the printer becomes involved.
The tradition of master printer is handed down from one generation to the next. The printers Parkes works with were taught by the master that printed Kokoschka, Giacometti and Leger. Questions of composition, colour and atmosphere are discussed between printer and artists before printing begins. The initial drawing only gives a suggestion of what the actual lithograph will become.
The unpredictability of the process means that the original ideas might have to be changed several times to correct mistakes or to take advantage of 'accidents' that look promising. Now the drawing is on the stone, it needs to be etched onto the surface of the stone to be used for printing. What makes the lithographic process possible is the principle that oil and water do not mix.
The etch makes the image more receptive to the ink while the stone remains perfectly flat.