Artist's Statement & CV

Debbie Parker - 2009

Often intrigued by the Australian landscape, Debbie’s paintings are a blend of traditional landscape style and contemporary flair. Focusing on nature’s design, form, gesture, colour, and texture, Debbie uses strong colour contrasts to suggest natural forms and lighting. Her expressionist approach offers a snapshot or vision of her experiences with nature – from the crisscross patterns of light filtering through trees, to feeling of the energy a windswept cliff, to tall trees gracing the cool of a billabong. Shadows and glints of sunshine are represented with bold strokes – the end result being a beautiful, almost dream-like portrayal of her experiences in the Australian landscape.
Art has always been an important part of Debbie Parker’s life – since childhood she’s been immersed in painting, drawing and appreciating art. She is influenced by such artists as Reinis Zusters, Margaret Woodward, Alberto Giacometti, Vincent Van Gogh, Turner, and Edgar Degas.
She did not have access to any formal art training outside high school in Brisbane until the early 1990s while living in Canberra. There, Debbie attended evening classes in painting through Open Access at the Canberra Institute of Art. She was mostly interested in the very special and constantly different effects possible with water-based media - allowing the water and the media to accidentally merge or resist each other to create textures and lines often found naturally. She started with transparent watercolour and was influenced by Chinese silk painting. Many of these influences are now evident in her canvases – she has devised a range of ways of harnessing different effects to create representational forms inspired by nature.
After exhibiting in some local competitions she was noticed by the Southland’s Gallery in Canberra, a gallery with an Australian focus. They exhibited her landscapes for several years in Sydney and Canberra. She continued exhibiting there until moving back to Queensland in 1994 with her family. She has since exhibited at the Brisbane Institute of Art (BIA), and received a highly commended in the d’Arcy Doyle landscape prize in 2006 as well as many local art competitions and this years exhibited her first solo exhibition “Memories Of Trees”, most recently a group show at the Wesley Hospital.
The past two years have seen her spend more time painting in her home-based studio and studying life drawing and figurative painting. She balances graphic design work with her painting and drawing.

Exhibitions
1992 - 1994 - Canberra group exhibitions Southlands gallery
2004 - 2008 - Various Group exhibitions in Galleries and Local Art Competitions in Queensland including Hang-Ups Gallery and Oriel Road Gallery
June 2008 – solo exhibition “Memories of Trees” Doggett Street Studio, 85 Doggett Street, Newstead, Brisbane.

Awards
2006 - d’Arcy Doyle landscape prize - highly commended

Training
1992 - 1994 Canberra Institute of Art – Investigation in Water Media. General Drawing, Printmaking
1996 Design College Australia- Brisbane – Advanced Diploma Visual Communication Graphic Design
2004 - 2007 Brisbane Institute of Art (BIA) – Life Drawing and Studio Painting
Artists Academe – Portraits