ABSTRACT OR REPRESENTATIONAL : Depends on the Source of the Light
Almond Tree, Biot, 60” x 70”, oil on canvas, Private Collection, Houston, © Leslie Parke 2008
My paintings are about light.
When I paint representationally and I am about the business of rendering light, I often choose a subject that is backlit. It seems to offer the most extensive and complex qualities of light - light on a surface, passing through a surface, reflecting off of a surface, often highlighting transparency, translucency, reflection, or glitter.
Flying Saucers, 48 inches x 58 inches, oil on canvas, © Leslie Parke 2012
The most complete expression of this can be seen in my china paintings, although it occurs in most of my work. But how do you get these qualities when you work abstractly? It's not something I figured out all at once. It started when I was trying to paint the light that glitters off the surface of water. I used white paint, but it felt dull and did not leap off the surface of the canvas. Then I scraped the silver off of a CD and applied that, and that didn't work either. As I drove home one rainy night I noticed how the stripe on the road reflected the light off my headlights and I thought - that's what I need. I called the highway department and asked them if I could buy some reflective road paint. It's not the paint that is reflective, he told me, it’s the beads of glass that we put in it, and with that he gave me the address of their supplier.
Light on Battenkill, 69” x 48”, Oil on Canvas, © Leslie Parke 2009
Later I came upon diamond dust, which is even better than highway glass for reflecting light, but I was unable to find a supplier. I used the highway glass to good effect in the river painting.Then I was working on a series of almond tree paintings, which at first I rendered quite realistically. But after taking a workshop with Vincent di Siderio, a well-known representational painter, who mentioned that he often started a painting by throwing tar on it or rustoleum, I thought, why not approach this work that way. Apply the paint differently and why not use metallic paint, after all, Jackson Pollock did.
"Tree in Twilight", 67” x 96”, oil, enamel, metallic paint on canvas, © Leslie Parke 2015
When I finished "Tree in Twilight" and hung it on my west facing wall, I observed how the light reflected off the surface of the painting and changed every time you moved. It also took on different qualities of light at different times of the day. Immediately I saw that instead of showing the light of the moment, it was creating a different light each moment. With Monet' s paintings of the Epte River, he shows you how the light changes moment to moment. With "Tree in Twilight", the painting itself changes each moment.From there the work became more and more abstract, but the quality of light and sensation of light remained the subject. Whether I paint representationally or abstractly, I still want the painting to have light emanating from the surface.
"Plated LIght", 72” x 30”, oil and metallic paint on canvas, ©Leslie Parke 2017