Biography
Biography
Simon Parker is from Liverpool, and has lived and worked as an art teacher in Chester since 2000. He studied fine art painting at Wolverhampton school of art 1984-87. He painted in Arena Studio’s, Liverpool, 1988-2002. Simon Parker’s inspiration used the raw elements of the urban environment but an interest in walking the mountains of North Wales in his mid twenties provided the backdrop for what has now remained as his main focus within his work. More recently, the very local landscape of North Wales, has become his driving force, utilising oil paint, drawing media and watercolour in response to what is seen. Simon Parker exhibited widely in the 90’s as an active member of Liverpool’s and the North West art scene. He exhibited regularly in group and solo shows within the North West and nationally. The past couple of years has been a renaissance for him, revisiting the practice of making art whilst still teaching art.
Artist Statement
I’ve always been interested in the great British genre of the British landscape, with Turner’s landscapes my earliest inspiration and which still remains today. The human experience has always confronted the landscape, living in it and from it, contending with the weather that can change so dramatically at any given time. Walking through the landscape has for me always been a time to think, reflect, explore and respond. For centuries the growing intrigue in landscape painting, has enabled artists to explore the idea of ‘getting away from the urban environments’ to explore its reverence and value. Today the notion of how fragile our world has become is prevalent in modern day thought. I’ve always been interested in recognising the unseen, seeing the world anew, within the locality I live. These responses are responses of the ordinary, not the spectacular. These paintings are places that most will come across from day to day. A chance to appreciate the very local world in which we accommodate.