Purple Diary
[April 21 2011]
Re-Upped by Erik Parker at the Colette Gallery, Paris
For his first solo show in France, Re-Upped by New York artist Erik Parker presents an aggressive neo-psychedelia, a world of drug-fuelled hallucinations bordering on the grotesque. The obsessive use of layering, saturated colour construct an alternate realm of chaos where biomorphic subjects parade alongside extravagant globules not unlike the heads of peyote cactuses. War tanks infiltrate the lines of the paintings whilst bold words such as ‘Hidden Hierarchy’ punctuate the sense of an overwhelming society at unrest. Parker’s optical extremes nostalgically recall his inspiration of the late Sixties’ counterculture, a time when assaulting and expanding one’s consciousness was the promise of boundless possibilities for a new world. Re-Upped by Erik Parker is on view until 30 April at the Colette Gallery, 213 Rue Saint Honore, Paris. Photo and text Sophie Pinchetti
