John Parker

John Parker is a self-taught professional oil painter, draughtsman, misanthrope and an occasionally noisy introvert. He generally avoids people, living in a house with a barn studio, one mile from the nearest road, in southern Bulgaria. Although this is an attempt at explaining his work and processes, he dislikes writing about himself in the third person and thinks that, creatively, to know what you're doing is over-rated and generally means that you’re not doing something right.
Parker’s work explores his own ideas of beauty. He is curious about the strangeness, the uniqueness and unity, of individuals. His idea of beauty is not crystalline perfection or a symmetrical ideal, but the beauty in physical variations, in the way people dress and act, in the way someone’s outward appearance is affected by their internal life and vice versa.
Some of his recent subjects include people in the hedonistic spaces created by festivals, celebrations and special events. Although people may privately dream of going out in public dressed as a mermaid, a sparkly elf, a diamonte majorette or a rainbow unicorn, it is only on certain prescribed occasions that people feel they can change their identity, from the mundane to the mystifying. He gives no ...

12″ of Sin inaugural international show, Sin City Gallery, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 2012

Dirty Show, Detroit, USA, 2012

Seattle Erotic Art Festival, Seattle, Washington, USA, 2012

Salon des Refuses du Peche, The Arts Factory, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 2013

12″ of Sin, best in show, Sin City Gallery, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 2014

Solo show; ‘Rub, sweat and smear’, Sin City Gallery, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 2014

‘Privata’, Portland, Oregon, USA, 2017

'Rhodopis', RAC autumn exhibition, October-November 2022, 'Sea Casino' regional cultural centre, Burgas, Bulgaria.

PUBLICATIONS

12 inches of sin, volumes I and II

12 inches of sin, volume III, cover feature

Night Beat magazine, April/ May 2015

'Ten', Clover Brook, 2020