Have you met…Melanie Parke?

An introduction can be a wonderful thing. You can meet interesting people, and make new friends. You can be introduced to your new favorite foods, books, music, or artist.

I’d like to introduce you to some of my favorite artists. Some of whom I’ve been familiar with for years, and other I’ve only recently been introduced to.

The artist I’d like to introduce is the Painter Melanie Parke, and she was recommended to me by Julia Swartz.

The Subway Musician
2011
oil on canvas
36″ x 36″

Artist Statement:

“I craft structures on the surface to reference a lush and gorgeous assemblage of time.
Painting is a pleasure seeking process for me, and abstraction a vehicle with which to think. My paintings are provoked by romantic notions of idyllic natural environments that sometimes scuffle with urban anxieties. The paintings are taken to abstraction, memory, and non objective imagery. I set up the space with gestural and heavily speckled marks that are lushly textural and intuitively applied to the surface. Then slowly build. I choose colors to depict concise temperate or extreme sensations. Specific interiors and landscapes are often implied; abrupt shifts in mark making can question if such a place exists. This is a way of establishing a perceivable memory while washing it away at the same time.”

Red Bowl
2012
oil on canvas
24×36

Other material relating to Melanie Parke.

Hyperallergic: Making an Artistic Life…

ArtSlant: Melanie Parke.

ArtMail milwaukee: Melanie Parke.

If you liked this introduction please check out the Previous and Next.