The Summit

Michael Parks - Magical Realist. What is unusual about Michael Parkes is that in his images metaphysical and spiritual elements are joined into reality. His work evokes a mysterious atmosphere, which can often only be deciphered with the help of ancient mythology and eastern philosophy.

In the fantasy world of Parkes, the laws of earthly reality are abolished, and space and time enter into their own motionless communion. It is tempting to speak of a dream world with Parkes, if it were not for the fact that the ‘dream world’ of Michael Parkes surpasses all of our dreams in audacity, freedom and intensity. In short, in Michael Parkes, the figurative art of our age has found a new, fascinating and extremely authentic exponent.

Earlier on, Michael Parkes had painted in the generally Abstract Expressionist style normal among his professors, but after his pause for reflection, he began to draw  and paint in a meticulous style of detailed representation which would enable him to give full expression to his inner world of images. 

Michael Parkes is the world’s leading magical realism painter, sculptor and stone lithographer. His decades of success as a fine artist stand out in the art world where few artists thrive. Michael Parkes’ works are collected by celebrities, prominent private collectors and galleries around the world and his body of work stands for all ages.

His first one man show was in Amsterdam back in 1977. Additional one-man exhibitions of Michael Parkes have taken place at Basel in Switzerland, Art Chicago, Art fair NY, Frankfurt Book fair, Amsterdam Art Fair, Tefaf Art and Antiques Fair Maastricht and numerous exhibitions in their galleries in Amsterdam and New York 1977 onwards.

Though he studied graphic art and painting at the University of Kansas, his unique style evolved very much in isolation, after a period in which he gave up the practice of art all together and went off to India in search of philosophical illumination. 

The style was in principle realistic, the subject matter magical, and Magic Realism, has characterized his work ever since. Michael Parkes has studied deeply in esoteric doctrine of the East and the West and his imagery is drawn from a range of wisdoms including the cabalistic and tantric, but embodied in forms from his own imagination nowhere immediately accessible. Here strange beasts encounter mysterious winged women, good and evil fight out their immemorial conflict  (though who can be perfectly sure which is which?) and in this weightless environment worlds are unmade and remade nearer to the heart’s desire.