Gina Parr b: 1957, is a Contemporary Painter and Photographer who “Paints” with her camera whilst travelling and away from her studio.

 

The Artist says of her Painting practice,

"Scape, memory and identity are ever present in my work. My childhood, spent diversely in wide-open spaces with my father fishing for mackerel and at home with my mother's hoarding and mental health issues, defined my relationship to the sea and land: the spirit and memory of the open space, evoking freedom and connectedness and the dark uncertainty of the deep. My work is an expression of the intermingling of joy and pain, love and loss: the human condition and tracks the line between abstraction and figuration.
When painting, I am completely immersed in the process, building a reverberating relationship with the canvas, a push and pull of spontaneity and controlled intention. I employ palette knife, cloth, brush, sponge and fingers, to add, remove, scratch, blur and work the oil paint, often drawing into the paint with charcoal, whilst aiming to evoke an atmosphere drawn from the process, the emotional trigger and the colour palette employed. Focusing on the relationship with the developing painting and the paint itself, I ultimately seek to find an emotional balance within the creation of the work, which I hope will in turn speak to the viewer’s inner self.”

 

Both her painting and photography uncover our complex potential connections and disconnections with form and landscape resulting in work that she hopes will provoke our capacity to imagine a space beyond our known territories. She has found a continuing symbiosis between her photography and her painting,

 

Originally trained as a Fine Artist, graduating with a First Class BA Honours Degree, Parr went on to Chelsea College of Art to study Set Design, leading to a 25 year career Production Designing a multitude of sets such as: Eastenders original Albert Square and interiors, Shooting Stars, The Royal Variety Performance, The World Cup 2006 for the BBC and The Brit Awards for ITV, and has designed and created stages for the likes of David Bowie, Kylie, Cher and Robbie Williams.

 

She returned to her work as a full time Artist in 2007, bringing her years of creative experience as a Designer to her Art practice.

Since then she has exhibited in galleries and art fairs in the UK, Denmark, Italy and France, has completed commissions in The Middle East, Belgium, London and the USA, has had her work featured on set of numerous British Television dramas and has also been selected to show at the prestigious Royal West Academy Bristol and the ING Discerning Eye at The Mall Galleries London. She is also a member of the Artist Network RWA Bristol.

Parr has also lectured in art and design in various colleges including Chelsea College of Art and Nottingham University.

Her works are held in collections Worldwide including Keble College Oxford, Director of Jestico + Whiles Architects London, President of the Boston's Children's Museum USA, Senior Economist Goldman Sachs, Argentex and Vedanta Headquarters in London, to name but a few.

She now lives and works in both Devon and London’s East End.

Gina Parr CV - Word Doc download