JS Parker

Highly regarded by collectors nationally and internationally, JS Parker is best known for his large impasto paintings within a grid format, full of texture, rhythm and balance within his imposed framework, exploring juxtapositions of colour. He worked in thick layers of paint applied with a palette knife, sweeps of paint which he would pare back to reveal hints of what lies beneath.

JS (John) Parker studied at Ilam School of Fine Arts, Christchurch and graduated with Honours in Painting in 1967. Highly regarded by collectors, nationally and internationally, Parker is best known for his large impasto paintings within a grid format. His works are full of texture, rhythm, and balance within his imposed framework. Parker worked in thick layers of paint applied with a palette knife – sweeps of paint, which he pared back to reveal hints of what lies beneath.

For Parker, it is the sense of an inner radiance in his paintings which allows the viewer to relate to the “spirit” of the painting. Parker had always been drawn to emotive rather than hard-edged art and believed in eliminating in painting any obstacles to the spirit: “If your painting’s going to have a language, it’s got to be felt. It’s a physical thing.”

Parker painted full-time since he was awarded the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship in 1975. In 2002, Parker was awarded the ONZM in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in recognition of his services to painting over the previous four decades. He lived and worked in Marlborough until his death in August 2017.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS AT ARTIS

2020 – Oh No Never Let The Spirit Die, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland
2016 – The Light Plain, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland
2014 – Recent Paintings – with Roy Good, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland
2013 – Abstract Reunion – with Roy Good, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland

2017 – JS Parker Poems 1963 – 2017, Millennium Public Art Gallery
2009 – JS Parker: Plain Song, Dr Damian Skinner, Millennium Public Art Gallery

ACADEMIC HISTORY

1967 – Ilam School of Fine Arts, Christchurch

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2020 – Oh No Never Let The Spirit Die, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland
2016 – The Light Plain, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland
2014 – Recent Paintings – with Roy Good, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland
2013 – Abstract Reunion – with Roy Good, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland

AWARDS

2014 – Marlborough Living Cultural Treasure
2002 – Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit
1975 – Frances Hodgkin’s Fellow

COLLECTIONS

Marlborough’s Millennium Art Gallery
Auckland Art Gallery
Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu
Dunedin Public Art Gallery
University of Victoria, Wellington
University of Otago’s Hocken Collections – Uare Taoka o Hakena.