Melanie Parke

Parrot of Peace, vibrant gouache on paper still life

2021

Melanie Parke’s imagery of rustic kitchen tables, dish shelves, entryways and window nooks congregate to suggest snug gathering spots and welcome respites of interiority.

Set up with recognizable still life identifiers — a stem casually placed in a glass jar, fruit loosely strewn on a table top, ceramic tumblers or a teapot — a convivial human presence is noted, not through bodies but close narratives between objects. Proximities between a window and its reflection on the table top establishes that light is the main character. Refractions move across a surface and the effect makes a chimera of things — a mutation — lifting the weight of the familiar into a fresh reverie.

A room’s pitch can be read through highly decorated floral patterns or tonal color fields shifting slightly to enliven or quiet the mood. Whether euphoric or contemplative, every perspective leads to a preoccupation of chasing light.

Cézanne’s idea of passing through objects is something Parke thinks about a lot. Even when her pattern engages a seemingly uniform plane, transparencies never end, pass through walls, and keep the eye going.

Parke’s paint handling varies from multilayered to wet on wet, always textured, always nuanced.

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