R. Nelson Parrish is a multi-disciplinary fine artist, investigating the expansion and contraction of time. He draws upon lived experiences in the natural world as key sources of inspiration in his mixed media sculptures, image making and paintings. His internationally recognized practice fluidly moves across mediums and materials. Parrish actualizes his work from the foundation of color as a language, being immersed in a moment, and is highly dedicated to craftsmanship.
His works translate visceral and ephemeral moments into the tangible. These heightened experiences that are simultaneously calming and chaotic, are also definitively poetic and memorable. Each piece presents an opportunity to slow time, inviting the viewer to awaken a new lens in which to experience the world. The works, the viewer, and their experience are threaded together into a grander narrative: the narrative of who we are as a people and culture that can be told for all of time.
Using his body as a recording device, the artist translates the emotional synergy of these moments through the melding of disparate materials, including pigments, bio-resin, and reclaimed wood. Blurring the boundaries of natural and synthetic, Parrish captures the complex entangled realities of the contemporary landscape.
Parrish has had notable solo exhibitions at the BMW Welt, Munich, Germany; The Kimball Art Center, Park City, UT; Sheppard Gallery, Nevada, Reno; and Edward Cella Art+Architecture, Los Angeles, CA.
Group exhibitions include Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Art & History, Lancaster, CA; Sense Fine Art, Menlo Park, CA; Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, Alaska; Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA; Museum of Art & History, Santa Cruz, CA; Galerie Nobel, Oslo, Norway; Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA; Art, Design and Architecture Museum, University of California-Santa Barbara; and Galerie Hegemann, Munich, Germany.