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| Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex Installation |
It sounds corny, but artists have a lot of nerve. They have to. Art takes nerve. It has been suggested by at least one writer that I essentially steal a painting, that after muddling my way through, at the last second I heave up a Hail Mary and do some "how did he do that" Johnny Football magic to win the game. The suggestion is that I do not play fair, the right way, earning my victory through some consistent hard work ethic... that I am not Yankee, reaping and sowing, plodding and sweating, calculating and executing my way to my intended goal, to a sportsmanlike victory. That I cheat. Some nerve.
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| Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex Installation |
This is in part true. True because I do not believe that art is something that you can calculate, measure, size up, scheme, formulate, or get to by the numbers. Farming is wonderful, but art is not like farming. Art is about balance and it is also about surprise. A field of corn is about hard work, taking care of business, determination, and patience, as much as nature is the grandest miracle, day in and day out.
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| Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex Installation |
I don't believe art is anything like that, you cannot tame it, domesticate it, or harness it for a purpose. This is the unspoken law of art. So unspoken that many choose to ignore it altogether, and at great cost. And deep down every artist knows this. Art takes nerve. It is like some utterly elusive unicorn that you might scour the earth to find, and when you think you have, you put out some food for it and wait and hope that it makes a brief appearance, that you may bask in its radiance, but you can't go back again to the same place to find it, you can't trick it, you can't try to capture it and hold it, or surely you will scare it off or kill it. It will disappear or die. Art is above all a free spirit.
For thousands of years people with power have tried to say that it is "here," but it just eludes them and pops up over there. In this regard it is no different from love. It cannot be forced.
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| Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex Installation |
This should speak for how I feel about a painting. It is not something you start and put in the work and finish and then you are done. Next. People have asked me how long one of my paintings takes. My answer is always the same: it takes as long as it takes, no more, no less. In this a painting is like a mountain, if you want to get to the top, it decides how long and how high you have to climb.
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| Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex Installation |
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| Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex Installation |
But there is this other unspoken law: balance. And here is where the idea that I steal a painting is false. Balance is everything. Balance and then consciousness. Above all consciousness. Consciousness and becoming. A painting cannot helicopter its way to the top of the mountain by being exceptional in one regard, it can't be a good likeness as a portrait and sneak in as a good painting. There are a billion portraits, but what sets a Rembrandt apart is balance: it is everything else too, and no one thing in particular; it is awesome in the abstract for example. Big picture and small, broad strokes and detail. Color and value. Object and space, figure and ground, open and closed, positive and negative. And for all of this Rembrandt's portraits are often rewarded with an appearance by the unicorn.
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| Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex Installation |
So yes, I worship and respect the unicorn. The ah! The surprise. The revelation. Never the same. Never predictable. Never calulated. The everlasting kingdom of hope. And yes, there is glory there, just not the kind you think, not a ticker-taped parade, but the glory of a sunrise. Morning glory. It is not the land of tried and true. You can't retrace your steps or follow the beaten path. Every day you have to start out anew. You have to believe. You have to hope. And as inconvenient as it might seem, you have to discover everything all over again.
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| Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex Installation |
Recent Paintings of Addison Parks, 2014-2015 this November 2015 thru January 2016 NIELSEN GALLERY
Organized and curated by Nina Nielsen and John Baker.
To see the exhibition please visit: www.nielsengallery.com
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