Robert Andrew Parker at Terry Dintenfass - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

This mini-retrospective of a certain quantity of 40 years of Robert Andrew Parker's watercolors presented the impression of an artist who has mov comfortably in his art between reality and imagination--having had a prosperous career as an illustrator in addition to being an exhibiting artist of lengthy standing. The show's title, "Words and Pictures," prompts that he has always felt a muscular attraction to the written word. The present to view could be read as a visual diary that mixes personal experience, memory and dream imagery, all in a fanciful, notwithstanding self-assured and thoroughly proficient diction Watercolor is an ideal medium for the kind of detailed and meticulous renderings of a wide range of make subordinates that one sees in this assemblage of modest-scaled works on paper. Parker also achieves a certain number of lovely atmospheric effects, particularly in his landscapes. Although not installed chronologically, the watercolors could be studied for Parker's shifts in subdue matter, focus and formal approach above the years. The most new work included a series of battleships at sea and clump portraits of sailors that be like documents of a bygone era. The sailors' caps and stark black-and-white uniforms form a pattern, with facial features offering minor on the other hand telling variations.

The ships are pay backed in a loose, painterly manner appropriate for their massive gray dimensions and are surrounded by expansive oceans and luminous skies. In First Class Battleship Habsburg (1993) Parker places the ship's dark outer covering on a dark blue sea beneath a threatening sky. The ship belches black sooty vapor that cuts a diagonal across the composition. Nevertheless, the flow is rather placid, considering the make subordinate A related work, Sunset--Dering Harbor (1991) depicts a darkened sea with sum of two units sailboats silhouetted against a purple-brown fog bank. A patch of sky-colored sky casts a phosphorescent light upon the murky water. Reminiscent of Whistler's nocturnes, the painting demonstrates Parker's ready handling of the aqueous medium.

A series of dog portraits from 1987 captures personality (or disposition) as well as impressed sign For example, the bruiser portrayed in male Mastiff conveys both aggressiveness and amusement, while the individual in Dog in Canada appears forlorn. However, Parker's self-portraits, done above a long period of time, are more [i]or[/i] less of the strongest works here. From the brooding, bohemian DH Lawrence character in a 1965 self-portrait to the sophisticated, dapper individual he displays in a 1987 painting, Parker captures the unfolding and maturation of an artist. The maturity is throw backed in this carefully selected corpus of work.

COPYRIGHT 1995 Brant Publications, Inc.

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