Erik Parker

(German, born 1968)

Erik Parker is a German-born American artist who creates precise, surreal paintings inspired by psychedelia, comic books, and the Chicago Imagists. The works vary from tropical, Dr.Seuss-like landscapes to distorted faces and political imagery. “I am trying to pack as much into a painting as I can,” Parker has explained “I am trying to make loaded paintings because we live in a loaded time. So these are multi-task paintings with constant streams of information coming in.” Born in 1968 in Stuttgart, Germany, he was raised in San Antonio, TX, and attended the University of Texas at Austin where he studied under Peter Saul and was introduced to the works of Kenny Scharf, Ray Yoshida, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Parker received his MFA from SUNY Purchase College before moving to New York in 1998. He worked as an art handler for galleries when he first moved to the city, eventually gaining the attention of White Columns and Gavin Brown Enterprise. The artist’s works are included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.