There is a lot of superb contemporary realism being made these days; this article by Allison Malafronte shines light on a gifted individual.
Viewing Nicole Parker’s paintings and intaglio prints feels like discovering and dusting off a pile of old Polaroids, or looking at vintage stills of moments and memories long gone. Blurry street scenes, a distant object shrouded in misty fog, pitch-black winding roads — these are the subjects Parker uses to transport us to a time and place in her mind’s eye.
“My work functions as a visual memoir, an investigation of how visual memory changes over time and how my perception of the present evolves with it,” the artist shares. “I make pictures of places and things that represent a memory, a state of being, or even a dream that I keep traces of but can’t physically return to.”
Parker earned a B.F.A. in drawing and painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where she also developed an appreciation for, and aptitude in, the intaglio printmaking process. Today she works from both observation and memory in her Mount Airy, Maryland, studio, allowing such inspirations as music, language, film, and food to influence her creativity as well. In her current body of work, Parker explores the triangular relationship among her sense of self, what “home” means, and the physical spaces and environments she’s occupied throughout her life.
The artist’s fascination with the strangeness of “betweenness” or — as she says — being nowhere and everywhere at once, figures prominently in her recent work. In “Are We Lost,” illustrated above, Parker uses two cars as symbols of this feeling. “Driving is such an interesting activity because when you travel, you’re in a transient state between one place and another,” she notes. “It seems inconsequential because it’s temporary and a means to an end, but I enjoy the trip as its own event. One of my favorite activities is just the act of looking, and nothing requires more looking than driving. There is barely any time to process the individual things I’m seeing on the way, but I remember the light and the color of a trip. ‘Are We Lost’ is not a perfect representation of actual road locations but rather a collection of generic objects and ideas arranged in specific ways to reflect what I remember from the trip itself.”
Parker continues, “Because memory is imperfect, the process of making images based on it can often feel like circling a destination without ever arriving, or like a word on the tip of your tongue. In the studio, I’m helped and inspired by how potent my sensory memories are, and by the way that light, color, and the smell of the air stick in my mind. These concrete sensory experiences are always at the core of my practice.”
Connect with the artist at nicole-parker-art.com.
