| The Art Page of Brian Parks |
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Thanks for visiting! Although
I was trained as a research scientist and obtained a doctorate in Botany (1985, photobiology), the arts have been a close part of my life since birth. My father was a visual artist, and so it is fair to say that my training in the arts has stretched far longer than my formal scientific education. He nurtured my capacity to see our surroundings through a different lens and create my own forms of art. My eldest daughter also has a bachelor’s degree in art, and so my close exposure to the arts continues. I am not prolific, but I would say that I am consistent. To the right is an ordered list of some of my favorite works along with links to images. I hope you will enjoy them. Note: I hope you don’t feel that I am showboating by providing this webpage. Although it is possible to navigate to this site from the root directory, the link is buried pretty deep and only found via an “Easter Egg”, which means I’m really not advertising it to the world. The most likely reason you are here is because you asked me about my art and I gave you this link. So, this page serves as an easy answer to your inquiry. ...Thanks Again! |
A Chronological Sampling: Pencil
Holder (c. 1962) – This early piece is more of a craft than created art since it was a first-grade project designed by my teacher. However, I include it here because I distinctly remember wrapping the thread around this small frozen-orange-juice container by myself. I was just 6 years old and I already had a steady hand. My mom used this on her desk for many years. Crayon
Drawing (1963) – An early drawing. I like how the mountains are a perfect row and the fish are in a perfect line. Good thing that I didn't make a career of building driveways! My parents framed it and it hung in our home hallway for many years. Box
Top (c. 1967) – My dad was making abstract
art as a Masters student at UCLA around this time and it got me thinking and playing. I took the clear-plastic lid off of a greeting-card box and carefully melted it over a small flame until it reached a form that pleased me. My dad loved this piece and had it until he died in his mid 80’s. Backyard (1970) – This is probably my first painting. I set up an easel in our backyard and did the best I could. It is nice to have this memory because big renovations and additions by subsequent owners have put an end to what was the nicest backyard in our Los Angeles neighborhood.
The Room (1972) – This work was a shadowbox assignment in my high school art class. Our teacher showed us how to make them and then let us produce anything we wished. This was my result. I recall how much my teacher liked it. It has suffered over fifty years of display in various places. But the bones are still there, and it has always instilled great pride.
Sailboat (1975) – This is a painting from an undergraduate art class at Hillsdale College during my second year there. It was the final project of our semester where we were all given the opportunity to paint any scene we wished. I was trying to utilize a more sketch-like method and I was very happy with the result.
Nothing a Little Band-Aid Can’t Cure (1984) – This piece came at a time in grad school when I began playing more on my own. I had gotten interested in the stained-glass technique and took a class. It was fun, but I wanted to go beyond the production of standard template themes. I created this one using the same palm tree template that I chose for my first class project, which was done with standard construction and color. Originally, it had a large Band-Aid bridging the open portion of the frame at the bottom. That disintegrated over time. It‘s a statement piece.
The Small Glass (1984) – I started to explore more with piecing glass together. My dad really liked this one. So, I gave it to him and he displayed it happily for years. In a serendipitous way, it fell from display in his Southern California studio in 1994 during the Northridge earthquake (mag. 6.7), and fractured (my dad repaired it). That repair, along with another feature it has, prompted my dad to name it (I never did) “The Small Glass” because it reminded him of “The Large Glass” (the nickname for “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even” (1915-1923)), a masterwork of Marcel Duchamp (one of his and my favorite artists). It just so happens that Duchamp’s piece also suffered an accidental fracture, which occurred during transport following its first exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 1926. The bottom line is that The Small Glass has evolved a lot over the years just as has Duchamp's piece, which he deemed "permanently unfinished". So…don’t EVER wash it!
Phyto
Comic (c. 1989) – For many years, I have sailed on a boat full of fun manipulating comics, postcards, and photos to give them my own signature. It has never been done to belittle the original creator, but rather as a way to provide humor and whimsy in a self-satisfying way. This is an alteration of a Sunday edition of "Zippy" by Bill Griffith. Obelisk (1992) – This is by far my most massive piece, and there is a long story behind it. Even though it is actually a stele, I was envisioning an obelisk when I created it. From reading portions of my “Plate”, you will understand my attraction to ancient obelisks. They were the inspiration for this. Making it an actual obelisk would have taken a ton (almost literally) of concrete. This sucker already tips the scales at about 500 lbs. It has been in my backyard for a long time, and has continued to evolve there. The right-most image is its current night view. The colors used for lighting there are an homage to the molecule that I focused on for 25 years of research. Go to my Science page to learn more. This is also a statement piece. When people ask me what it is about, I tell them that "It’s man’s inhumanity to man"...and I’m not kidding.
Rubber Bands (1992) – I became interested in photogram (I call it shadowgraph) printing. Man Ray did a number of these in his career. He called them Rayographs. It is a form of photographic printing where objects are placed directly on undeveloped photographic paper and then briefly exposed to overhead light, followed by normal development. This piece was named after the items that were placed on the paper for this particular trial.
Self Portrait (1992) – This is another shadowgraph in which I was the object “placed” over pieces of undeveloped paper. This was a very crazy time in the darkroom!
K-Cut III (1993) – In addition to Duchamp, I am also very impressed by the work of Wassily Kandinsky. I believe his work on abstraction represented the art equivalent of the quantum revolution in physics. As a play on his works, I cut and repositioned copies of sample works during his career in an effort to bring dimensional depth to them and help trace a path for my impression of his development of quantum art. This was the third (III) in the series, a manipulation of “Arc and Point” (1923).
Darwin, Rock, & Zappa (1995 & 2001) – I believe I can draw. But you’ve probably already concluded that I don’t do much of that. You are correct. I am not a quick draftsman and so I find drawing a bit too laborious. It’s not that I don’t like it. Rather, it just takes too much effort to get to a satisfying end.
Bitten (2004) – This is a piece for amazement. My old High School algebra book had a cool cover image that attracted my eye and that burned itself into my memory. Decades later I finally learned that it was a close-up view of a 60’s computer magnetic-core memory plane. Go here for an explanation of what this is if you do not know, and note that this technology was utilized during efforts to put astronauts on the moon. The title of the piece is a play on the word “byte” and is written in binary (black and white) ASCII directly underneath the mounted memory plane.
Safe Xylology (2006) – This was a whimsically accidental meeting and subsequent mating of wood and glass. The wood is an old bare broomstick and the glass is an old gel filtration chromatography column. They were leaning side by side against a wall when I spotted them. I studied them closely and then simply tested to see if the stick would fit into the column. It was a PERFECT fit… a beautifully fateful meeting.
Broken Symmetry (2006) – This is a wind chime that I made with unused material from my telescope project. The title stems from a term in physics denoting the moment where individual elements of the unified four fundamental forces of nature (Strong, Weak, Electromagnetic, and Gravity) separate and become realized at points along the cooling timeline of the Universe following the Big Bang. The broken symmetry here is the ring that is split and missing a portion. Of the two rings, it is the split (i.e. “broken”) one that provides the sweet-sounding "dinggggggg" upon striking its solid and unbroken partner. The released “force” is represented by this carrying and sustained sound.
Underappreciated (2008) – I like to write haiku now and then. This was a combo where I included a drawing. It is an ode to my favorite color.
Found Art (c. 2008) – Going back to my favorite artist (Duchamp), this is a readymade construct of separate “found” items. The pedestal is a very large nut that I found sitting along some railroad tracks. The metal ball is an old ore processing grinding ball that I purchased at an antique shop in Leadville, CO. I simply married them to elevate their purpose. Chuckle.
His n’ Hers (2013) – This is probably one of the goofiest pieces I have ever done. If you zoom in, you might recognize the objects that are embedded in the resin. My wife and I each lost one separately following different events (soccer for her >right< and skiing for me >left<). I kept them and “honored” them for posterity. My eldest daughter really likes this one. My wife, uhhh…not so much.
Étant donnés: 1° la couleur des plantes, 2° la lumière du soleil (2016) – Just a black box? Nope! I actually consider this to be my magnum opus. It is another homage to both Marcel Duchamp and the primary object of my life’s scientific research. It was conceived in reference to “Étant donnés: 1° la chute d’eau, 2° le gaz d’éclairage”, which was Duchamp’s final artwork, created in complete secret over the last twenty years of his life, and discovered posthumously. His final work is permanently housed in the Philadelphia Art Museum where most visitors often pass by it, thinking there really isn’t much to see. Big mistake.
This
webpage was created in April 2022.
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