Michael Parkes: Paintings, drawings, stone lithographs, 1977-1992

Michael Parkes (born in 1944) is American. He studied graphic art and painting at the University of Kansas and settled in Spain in 1975. Numerous international exhibitions underline the importance of Parkes' work.

What is unusual about Michael Parkes is that in his paintings and lithos, metaphysical and spiritual elements are joined to reality. His work evokes a mysterious atmosphere which can often only be deciphered with the help of ancient mythology and eastern philosophy. His real strength lies in the totality of the composition as image, from the compositional in the narrow sense, which he has mastered as have few others, to the figurative construction of his phantasmagoria, complete with color and light, space and material expression, even when this has a mainly immaterial and unearthly character. In this fantasy world of Parkes, the laws of earthly reality are abolished, and space and time enter into their own 'motionless' communion. It is tempting to speak of a dream world with Parkes, if it were not for the fact that his dream world, as a sign of his true greatness, surpasses all our dreams in audacity, freedom and insistency.

In short, in Michael Parkes the figurative art of our age has found a new, fascinating and extremely authentic exponent.