John Parker: RED (2011)

Leading ceramic artist and 2010 Laureate Award Winner John Parker reveals a stunning bold use of colour in his latest exhibition aptly titled RED.  Confident and entirely at ease with his material and vision, Parker continues to reduce expression to the essentials of form but rather than apply the severe singular palette of white with which we are accustomed he presents Bottles, Bowls, Cylinders, Orbs and Vases in flamboyant rich hues of red.  This intense blaze of red brings Parker’s visual language into new territory and when compared to the stark austerity of his white forms, these audaciously coloured forms function in an entirely different way.

At first glance the red glaze appears as a solid hue yet there are subtle tonal gradations that lend a sense of oscillating movement, of simmering energy.  This in turn makes shadow behave in a different way as variances in hue reflect, reverberate and energise.

These idiosyncratic artworks dictate their own particular spatial relationships and groupings.  Unlike the subtle soft line of Parker’s white forms, there is a fresh boldness and sharp intensity here - edges are more defined and so there is a heightened awareness of architectural aspects, the spaces between, dimensional volume and the internal structure.  When clustered together, the positive and negative spaces between forms shift and seemingly flux as colour resonates and lines intersect.

Combining new daring colour with his characteristic sculptured forms, and while staying true to his enduring dialogue, Parker once again reveals his formidable skill as a master designer and ceramic artist.