Erik Parker on HYPEBEAST

9 January 2019

Profile by Keith Estiler Erik Parker on Making the Familiar Strange on HYPEBEAST.

Delicate guitar licks from a Hawaiian blues song by Gabby Pahinui pulls us into a studio that’s one part entryway, one part kitchen space, and two parts work space. Through a slit in a wall, we’re confronted with a row of large-scale tondos — circular canvases that were popular during Italy’s Renaissance period in the 15th century — portraying surrealist landscapes filled with decomposing flora and collages made from vintage Playboy magazines. Although there’s a sense of chaos in the visuals, the soothing Pahinui tune puts us at ease as we observe the works — a kind of magic one can only get at Erik Parker’s Brooklyn workspace.

“Gabby Pahinui is the shit man, anyone who disagrees is lying,” Parker remarks as he paces around his studio in a pair of YEEZY 500s. The artist, known for his psychedelic face paintings, invites us to take a closer look at a few in-progress tondos, which will be displayed at his upcoming solo exhibition “New Soul” at Mary Boone Gallery in Midtown Manhattan. Although Parker reveals it’s his first time working with the round canvas, he has already masterfully crafted a few compositions on the material -- packed with details that invoke his life story and artistic journey...

Erik Parker in JUXTAPOZ MAGAZINE

January 2019

Article by Sasha Bogojev Erik Parker's A New Soul to Start a New Year in JUXTAPOZ MAGAZINE.

Erik Parker is kicking off the new year with his 2nd solo show with Mary Boone Gallery which will open on January 10, 2019 at their Fifth Avenue location. Following the New Mood exhibition presented last March, where his "plank" paintings and pyramid-shaped canvases dominated the space, New Soul will be presenting a new series of mostly tondo paintings.

We've visited Erik Parker's studio in Williamsburg recently, just one month after opening his big retrospective show Millennial’s Dilemma at Hong Kong Contemporary Art (HOCA) Foundation, and one month ahead of the opening of this new solo exhibition. With some of the works barely sketched on the primed canvases and some almost entirely completed, we got a great insight into artist's intricate creative process. Hidden behind the mountains of hand-labeled cans of paint, the vibrant new body of work is divided between landscape and figurative images.

Using intensively vibrant hues, the artist composes surreal landscapes usually appearing over a pool of water. Creating a lush setting filled with impossible vegetation, from unbelievable flowers or leaves to tentacle-like ground-creeping lifeforms, Parker's psychedelic landscapes regularly feature lone islands or heavenly waterfalls. Completely unrestrained with the rules of dimension, perspective, light, or accurate depiction, it's the choice of colors and the incredible shapes of the flora that makes these alluring images both complex and irresistible. The use of a round tondo format for these paintings is giving an illusion that the scene is unveiled through the telescope of a distant explorer, adding to the romantic and dreamy feel of the work...

Erik Parker in Artforum

May 2018

Review by Jeff Gibson Erik Parker/Mary Boone Gallery in ARTFORUM.

Calibrated for maximum hallucinogenic effect, Erik Parker’s ultra-vivid, hyper-pictorial paintings go all out to grab and hold one’s attention. For this show, his first with Mary Boone, the artist’s hyperbolic solicitations came in three distinct forms—portraits, pyramids, and planks. The portrait paintings, of which there were five (three of solitary visages, one bearing two heads, and one comprising a group of four severely discombobulated busts), were either medium or large in scale, and constituted the most labor-intensive, complex, and accomplished works in the show. Each portrait was essentially a constellation of crisply rendered cartoon eyes, ears, mouths, and noses dispersed across vaguely face-shaped masses fashioned from geometric and biomorphic forms. These contours delineated vignette- or portal-like spaces that were then filled in with decorative patterning...

Erik Parker in BLISSS MAGAZINE

May 2018

Interview with Liz Rice McCray Say Hello to… Erik Parker in BLISSS MAGAZINE.

Erik Parker is an artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He’s well known for his vividly colored paintings, otherworldly forms and distorted shapes. Speaking with Erik Parker we were struck with his positivity and charming personality. Erik has been awarded several honors throughout his career and has had solo exhibitions at galleries and museums around the world. We were excited to catch up with Erik and find out more about his current solo show, “New Mood,” at Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY. Many thanks to Erik Parker for answering our questions, and dealing with all the crosstalk...