Artist Review
J.S. Parker
J. S. Parker
Plain Songs – From Rarangi, Mostly Blue
The Arthouse, 10 - 28 October 2007
J. S. Parker’s Plain Song series continues to be a considered and rewarding project. Plain Songs - From Rarangi, Mostly Blue, his latest collection of thirteen works on canvas and paper, demonstrates the continued development of Parker’s meditations on the tonal relationships and lyricism of landscape elements. He has drawn inspiration from the coastal settlement of Rarangi, Marlborough, named for its significance to Maori who say the sun rises from this point. In response to this, light and the colours of sea and sky characterise this body of work.
Parker’s visual language is familiar; unsullied paint is applied to the canvas in broad blocks of colour enlivened with heavy impasto. In From Rarangi, Mostly Blue, Parker revisits and extends his signature aesthetic, while the new Arthouse space permits the paintings to enter into conversation with each-other, resonating with both harmony and dissonance.
Plain Song – Long Travelling Blue is a major work. At 2.5 metres wide, it is a painting you can walk by. In doing so, variations in texture and tone reveal themselves, instilling the canvas with movement and vitality. The composition is simple: a horizontal section of bold cobalt blue, sandwiched between two sections of lighter blue infused with white. The full-width of the lower section is incised with a contrasting line – an essential device for enriching the composition and aiding balance. The compositional structure of Long Travelling Blue has been employed by Parker in earlier works, but he has resolved this on a larger horizontal format to dramatic effect.
Facing Long Travelling Blue, is another work of powerful simplicity. Plain Song – Light through Darkness is, as the name suggests, a channel of light blue driving through a mass of inky navy. This composition recalls Colin McCahon’s Waterfall series of the 1960s, but Parker has made it his own through his gestural paintwork and strong colour. The adjacent work, Plain Song – Flower Piece, uses this compositional structure to entirely different effect. It is now the inky blue occupying the centre of the canvas, engulfed in a field of sunny yellow and orange. The tension of Light through Darkness is offset by the sweetness of Flower Piece, demonstrating the importance Parker’s command of colour relationships to ignite his paintings.
The exhibition also features works in Parker’s familiar “patchwork” format. Two works on paper, Plain Song – Earth Song and Plain Song – For the Gorse and Broom feature a neutral palette of browns and creams, weighed down by sections of dense black. On the adjacent wall, Plain Song – Balancing Red is a counterpoint in dissonant reds, orange, yellow and blue. As the colours jostle, the eye bounces within the frame, never quite finding the balance of the painting’s title.
Balancing Red is a sudden moment of busyness in this exhibition. A similar palette is employed in Plain Song - For Jens Hansen, yet in this work a dominant field of red is punctuated by squares of pinks, blues and greens. Parker acknowledges the influence of the late Nelson jeweller Jens Hansen in his concern for working materials to bring out their best colour and light. Parker also attributes the example of Hansen’s European design aesthetic for his strong adherence to a central design concept. This is clearly seen in the Plain Song series – an enduring project which Parker will continue to explore as he endeavours to arrive at its ultimate statement.
Christine Whybrew, October 2007
