The Knapp Gallery is pleased and excited to announce an exhibit of the taut and emotionally charged paintings of Kenneth E. Parris III. Pulling Focus is a show anchored by small rendered details that evoke larger contexts and frameworks which perpetually shift and change.
There are no defined boundaries and demure silhouettes within Parris’ work. Rather, he crops scenes off-center, and the bodies he depicts are strained with effort. The act of looking for the viewer becomes uncomfortable, and initial understanding of the scene is suspended. Something is not quite right within the images Parris presents, and this forces the viewer to look closely and wonder what exactly is hinted at within Parris’ visual narrative. The master of creating this ‘suspension,’ of time, place and emotion, Parris strives to divorce his audience from preconceived notions of what it means to look and what it means to see.
Within the larger structure of Parris’ paintings, the strength and elegance of his compositions become definitive. While Parris focuses on moments of suspension to draw attention to the overlooked details that stand in for a larger message, it is impossible to dislocate these details from the larger arrangement. Playing with the idea of the current political dialogue between isolated events and the larger global picture, Parris’ pieces quietly hint at a parallel between the visual suspensions in his work and the changing face of popular culture, politics and public dissonance.
A springboard of ideas, the tight, controlled brushstrokes of Parris’ paintings evoke the power, dominance and discord not only within his figures but within his composition and his larger social context.
Join us for this powerful and exciting show!
Artist’s Statement
“Pulling Focus” is a body of work that centers on capturing the moment between looking, seeing, then realizing…the instant when perception turns inward.
This work is directly influenced by current world events. By narrowing focus, I see less black and white and find more beauty and possibility in uncertainty. The smaller moments provide clarity to the picture as a whole. My faith lies in the ability to learn and rebuild collectively as focus moves through and throughout.
I am interested in the space between the lines. When attention shifts from one thing to another, things are not always as they first seem. Quiet and subtle scenes become amplified. Compositions of a family’s home against a looming sky or a woman in a bathtub with light pouring into another room are cropped in a way that cause one to question what the subject really is. In the foreground of another piece, details of individual links appear in extreme scale forming a chain that extends back to serve the greater goal of restraint. Irony is discovered in the reality of paper boats that are set free only later to catch on fire. Blankets and sheets twist and stretch as the body is engaged in a way that seems to say “yes” and “no” simultaneously. The viewer is implicated, having to decide whether what is happening is an act of passion or violence.
My process consists of painting over layers of paper collages on wood panels. The layers are built up and, in select sections, broken down by stripping and scarring the surface. Brush strokes build to heightened refinement while other parts are less layered giving the whole piece a sense of immediacy. In some pieces, objects have been used as symbols forging a deeper narrative.
It is my intention that this work will stimulate a personal experience for the viewer that will promote the navigation of different perspectives.
Heavenly like spirits inhabit the works of Kenneth E. Parris III…spirits of beauty, spirits of goodness, spirits of wit and wisdom. They are all present if you use your powers of discernment. I see surfaces filled with inspiration. Inspiration calling forth powerful elements of thought and irony. These works exude no simple meaning, for it is up to you, the viewer and collector, to search out the message. I know they are inspired by thoughts stemming from a combination of complexities, such as color, texture, and construction. The mysteries of the images fade and brighten, depending on the clarity of vision you are willing to bring to the art.
Kenneth’s work reflects both the joy and pain of life, the daily struggle and the sweet dreams of night. As in the haunting piece, Home That Day. Who is there that day, or perhaps, who Was there that day, or any day you choose to imagine? Have they ascended into the windows of the sky, or descend to the earth below? It seems a supernatural confrontation between the two could be occurring.
Kenneth’s art is inspired by a love of material, for from the material, can also come the message. Layers of paint, layers of thought, combined skillfully into his arresting pieces of collage and creation. Kenneth is there in these works, looking back at you. His essence never fully leaves his art, imparting to it a sense of perpetual life.
— Lester Marks
Lester Marks has been listed in ARTnews as one of the world’s top 200 collectors, and by Art & Antiques as one of the top 100 collectors changing the art world. Lester has been enthusiastically collecting the works of Kenneth E. Parris III since the late 1990’s.
On the surface, the paintings of Kenneth E. Parris III are virtuoso studies of the world around us: a beautiful flower; a flock of sheep; the tension within a hand clasping a sheet; a house in the suburbs. All things we are at least superficially familiar with. Yet their power is not found on the lushly painted surfaces, but rather, what lies beneath and what lies beyond the picture plane: what is felt more than what is seen. Though his paintings betray small autobiographical strains they principally mirror the greater environment in which we live. Indeed, Kenneth’s work reflects the macrocosm of contemporary society as well as the microcosm of the individual and it is within this context that it becomes particularly relevant.
In paintings such as Hand Grasping Bedding, Kenneth paints the arms and legs of the protagonists in contortions of varying degrees of pleasure, or distress. The ostensible sensuality and sexuality of the image, is tempered (or attenuated, depending on who you ask) by the possibility of concurrent violence; a reference, perhaps, to the contradictory forces within all of us. In Three and a Half Paper Boats, paper boats, like naval vessels, float lazily on a body of water, while one slowly burns. In this scene of childhood whimsy an unsettling angst hovers over. The colors evoke a sense of nostalgia for a time that once was, and may never be again. There is thickness to the water, a darkness that seems unnaturally viscous and brooding. The sky of blue is juxtaposed with foreboding clouds of grey and black alluding to an oncoming storm or conflict. A similar melancholy can be witnessed in Home That Day where, despite the fact that we observe a beautiful home in suburbia, one cannot escape the sense that “That Day,” something bad happened. Like the chains in Kenneth’s paintings, all of his work is linked together by the signs of danger past the pretty facades.
On the eve of one of the most passionately contested and polarizing presidential elections in its history, the United States is faced with a debilitating financial crisis and recession, engaged in multiple conflicts in the Middle-East and weathering environmental stresses which threaten the biodiversity of the planet. The quantity of these and many more apparent calamities seems to be matched only by the magnitude of their severity. Yet, the warning signs which could have prevented many of these crises were largely ignored by the leaders, businessmen and power-brokers of our country. Indeed, the allure of windfall profits and the prospect of unfettered power veiled their eyes from the dangers lying beneath the surface. This dichotomy, of pleasure so desperately close to pain, courses through all of society. It courses through all of us. And indeed, it courses through all of the works of Kenneth E. Parris III.
— Scott Nussbaum, Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Department