Andy Parker
I’ve been dividing time between art and music now for several decades. The larger part of my time is spent in painting, outdoors if possible, otherwise grappling with larger canvas on stretchers or pinned to the studio wall, but my abiding love of music and the recording process never lets me stray too far away for long.
The quality of light and my attempts to represent the sublime moments of its characteristics are what keeps my painting alive. Painting influences are many and varied and mostly seen by the keen eyed in the works themselves. Asked to name a single favourite would be something I’m unlikely to ever be able to answer and different moods and different times spark different appreciations of different artists. Daumier, Corot and the Barbizons, Turner, Constable, the English landscape tradition, Brangwyn, Sorolla and Sargent, Velasquez, Veronese and Tiepolo all light up the dark corners but are still not the only ones I will cross a gallery to look at….
Most of my work is in series these days, whether a fixed-term series such as On The Buses or Following In The Footsteps of Turner or an ongoing one like the Russell Square series. I still have a large number of landscape works painted on the spot with little thought as to where they might fit in company, although often their location affords them group protection, certainly for my files, under Wales or Heaths or River Views, even if little else joins them together.
Whilst the wing and the wheel have indeed carried me away, mostly it is the wheel – usually two, on whatever motorbike I have been able to ride before another idiot car driver sends me down the road after it. Various motorbikes from the factories of messrs Yamaha, Suzuki, Guzzi and Honda have kept me out at work. Whilst there are warmer and safer ways to travel, there is little to beat the rush of setting out by bike for a trip in the early morning light, so thanks to all the manufacturers for their contributions and long may you run…
andyparker.uk.com 