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ARTandtheCITY by Jim Magner
ARTIST PORTRAIT: DENZEL PARKS
I
t’s the eyes. They strike you. Grab your attention. The hands are expressive—moving, but never in complete focus: they are not posing or frozen in a clear photographic moment. The body, what you see of it, is an expression of a physical being. It’s not quite an individual identity, but it’s curiously familiar. More like a personality veneer. You can look at them closely or fleetingly and you get fleeting glances in return—looking directly at you or beyond. The eyes are defensively noncommittal, but that is when the connection begins. It’s a shared feeling. A mood. He says his figures sometimes re-
Enigmatic Purple, 48x36, Mix-Media On Canvas.
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flect his mood, but can also influence it at times. For Denzel Parks, his work is all about the natures that define the human experience…a “conglomerate of moments from day to day life.” He conveys these emotion-filled moments by color—and, of course, by color contrasts. The obvious contrasts, warm-cool and light-dark grab our attention, but it is the contrasting elements of “saturation” and proportion, the effect of large and small color areas, that provide the power. He moves patches of heavy darks and light yellows to create tension or relief. He often includes plants in compositions to establish a more relaxed mood. Denzel is a Detroit native who studied graphic design and art history at Eastern Michigan University. He worked as an independent multimedia designer before turning to painting full time. He has recently joined the I Wish I Were A Poet, 48x36, Mix-Media On Canvas Foundry Gallery and is showing there in February. See: At ideas. Life is a walk in a meadow, tip toeing through the Galleries. the tulips. The cover art for the Hill Rag this Of course, a flash of lightening can be illuminatmonth is a Denzel Parks painting, “Will ing. Occasionally, art and ideas become so enmeshed See Us Through.” as to shake the viewer as nothing else can: Michelangelo’s ceiling of the Sistine Chapel explicates a theolJim Magner’s Thoughts ogy more than any epistle could ever define or glorion Art fy. The Idea becomes supernatural as human forms A feeling doesn’t need an idea, it can simexplode through the heavens with impossible powply be an emotion: alarm or joy and ever and grace. That is true of art of other religions or erything in between. Conversely, an idea social orders. The artists are masters of emotion. doesn’t need to be happy or sad, passionBut a lightening flash can also burn and destroy; ate or sorrowful, it can be calculating or art can smother the truth and burn holes though the merely logistical. But when ideas and fabric of a time and place. Some of the best propaemotions come together, sparks can fly. ganda has been devised by the wizards of glorificaLightning can flash. Thunder can boom. tion for the exaltation of a false ideal. Usually, art is just a pleasant thing. Visual arts, music, poetry, and theater can adPretty pictures. You feel good…there is vance either noble or evil ideas with great subtlety nothing new or threatening in the way of to advance a national identity or with stirring, grip-
