Essays by Iliana Schoinas
The Visual Impact of Pappas-Parks' Painterly Realistic Landscapes
Written for the Exhibition "Visionary Landscapes" at the Glenn and Viola Walters Arts Center, August, 2004.
Pappas-Parks’ Painterly Realistic landscapes
incorporate the visual impact of the natural world in accessible form. The
physicality
of the paint and the personality of the brushstroke have equal importance with
“getting the image right.” The Painterly Realist achieves a realistic
representation, however, she paints not only what she sees, but how she sees;
the painting becomes a record of perceiving and an “at-that-moment” document of
what the painter is experiencing both internally and externally.
Pappas-Parks harnesses the power of landscape imagery and explores ways to make an age old painting tradition fresh and original. Using different modus operandi she employs the expression of emotions and sensations through color and light. In this exhibition, we see the artist’s meditations on nature and ethos embodied on canvas and paper. Pappas-Parks recreates the landscape as an intellectually and emotionally charged space, in the process incorporating a range of elements including abstraction, allegory, dreams and personal narrative.
Pappas-Parks’
work reflects on the symbolism of objects and expands its view to the grand and
often spiritual impact of natural landscapes. She makes no attempt to picture every detail of a scene;
rather, she presents what seems to be
the visual essence of the place. She strives to depict the light and mood of
the scene that she is inspired to paint and records that moment of time to
convey that place as it once existed.
The often symbolic still life images, which are integrated with landscapes, are a central part of Pappas-Parks’ paintings. The objects and figures are placed on a ledge that frames the image and draws the observer into the intimate viewpoint of the painter. This connection with the objects facilitates the still life to personalize the landscape and contributes to the feeling and understanding of what it was to be in that particular location.
Pappas-Parks has taught as an art professor at Portland State University and Harry S. Truman College in Chicago. She has been archived in the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC and her artwork is included in many important collections, nationally and internationally.
Iliana Schoinas
Gallery Curator, Freelance Writer
Environmental Engineer
Cultural Influences on Katherine Pappas-Parks’ Artwork
In the
recent series of the accomplished artist Katherine Pappas-Parks it is worthy of
note to consider the influence
of her Greek culture
in shaping her artistic vision. The other-worldness,
surrealism and intensity in Pappas-Parks’ landscapes have their roots in her
experience of being raised in a Greek immigrant home.
Her culture’s symbolism, superstition, religion and connection to the natural
world was the impetus for Pappas-Parks to give way to imagination and created an
environment that allowed her to be open to the ideas in surrealism and magical
realism.
Her artwork
is influenced by the art and traditions of ancient Greece and Byzantium (Eastern
Roman Empire) and b
y folklore and superstitions of a
culture connected to the land in a way that has remained virtually unchanged for
over 3000 years. The art and culture of ancient Greece and Byzantium have had a
profound impact on contemporary Greek thought and art, not only in Greece
itself, but in the descendants of those Greeks who have left their native lands
and established themselves in American culture.
The influence of the religious aspects of Pappas-Parks’ culture on the mystical expression in her artwork is evident. The Greek Orthodox religion with rich traditions that go back thousands of years offers an intellectual and emotional experience where the senses are stimulated and the individual is transported to the spiritual world. Her experience at home and church consisted of the burning of incense which stimulates the sense of smell, the taste of wine that stimulates the palate, the resonating hymns that evoke meditation and the visual appeal of the church’s liturgical objects, art and architecture. Moreover, the Byzantine icon, with surreal images and colors adorned with gold and an intentional unearthly appearance, is a window to the spiritual world revealing the heavenly possibilities for each viewer.
Pappas-Parks’ inclination to paint landscapes charged with emotive energy is tied to her culture’s relationship with nature. Her exploration of the physical world can be traced back to her childhood when her parents shared their experience of the enduring human connection to the land. The close relationship to nature has been part of the Greek culture since its earliest recorded expression in frescos of the Minoan ruins in Crete. Pappas-Parks’ examination of the physical world continued as an adult, when she was influenced by the 20th Century Greek writer, Nikos Kazantzakis, who exhibited an affinity for simplicity in nature and wrote of beauty in an object as simple as a rock.
The richness of life and nature evident in Pappas-Parks’ landscapes and object d’ art is no doubt influenced by her vibrant and sensual culture known for its overindulgence, tragedy and love of life. By realizing Pappas-Parks’ connection to her culture’s relationship to land, art and religion the observer can gain a deeper understanding of what shapes her vision and her propensity towards magical realism and surrealism.
Iliana Schoinas
Gallery Curator, Freelance Writer
Environmental Engineer
May 2005
