Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Addison Parks / Prince Street Gallery / July Show

Here's a little of what's going on in my world.

Viking Funeral (2014) oil on linen, 16" x 20"

From July 8th to July 26th, 2014, Prince Street Gallery will be showing Source Paintings by Addison Parks. These works turn on the simple premise of a center point from which springs a life force not unlike a flower, plant or a fountain. They locate that moment of transcendence and transformation in a single gesture. As Parks happily concedes, just an excuse to paint. "My belief is that painting is a more-than-the-sum-of-the-parts proposition," he explains. "I'm counting on that. That all things get caught and trapped in and between layers of paint. Since I was a boy I have always been wowed by the power of painting to speak beautifully for life; that I would give myself completely to that is my oldest memory."

Addison Parks lives with his wife and children a stone's throw from Walden Pond. He earned his painting chops as a boy in the Via Margutta artist community in Rome in the early 60's, studying with Gino Severini, and then later in New York at the invitation of Richard Tuttle after picking up a BFA from RISD (’76). He did murals at PS1 in 1980, was one of Seven Americans at Washburn in '82, and had a solo show that same year in the Fuller Building at the Andrew Crispo Gallery. His first son was born while he was teaching at the Putney School in Vermont, and afterwards he travelled and showed in Europe. After teaching at RISD in the late 80's he ended up in Boston where he wrote an art column for the Christian Science Monitor, and showed with the Creiger/Dane Gallery, Nielsen, and later Bow Street in Harvard Square. He also has a summer studio in Truro, just outside of Provincetown, where he has been on the board of directors of Provincetown Arts, and on more than one occasion shown at DNA. His work has been written up in the New York Times, ARTS Magazine, and the Boston Globe."

The Prince Street Gallery reception for Source Paintings will be on Thursday, July 10, from 5 to 8pm. The artist will be present. A catalog will be available.