Abstract art is almost a century old but, in the hands of Christchurch painter Miranda Parkes, it’s still capable of youthful and irreverent behaviour. Parkes’s painting here does what parents tell their children not to do: it slumps. If it were stretched flat, the work’s striped surface might suggest order and precision. But its spectacularly rumpled state starts to suggest other things – a lavish garment just vacated by a body, or perhaps an unmade bed. Like her teacher Julia Morison, whose lavish work hangs opposite, Parkes makes paintings that happily flirt with fashion and decoration.
(Brought to Light, November 2009)

There is an audion tour available about this work.

Purchased, 2006
Reproduced courtesy of 64zero3 Gallery, Christchurch
Acrylic on canvas
2006/17
2006

Collection tags

abstraction, corners, stripes