Audrey Parker was a founding committee member of the Society for Research on Women in New Zealand in 1966, and an inaugural volunteer guide at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery (now Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū) from 1979. She took up painting studies later in life at the University of Canterbury’s School of Fine Arts in the 1980s, where she soon earned the respect of both staff and peers. Parker exhibited in Christchurch at the Canterbury Society of Arts and Salamander Gallery and maintained her painting practice and studio at the Christchurch Arts Centre until the 2010–11 earthquakes.

Silent Reservoir (The Bloodline) matches Peter Simpson’s description of Parker as a maker of “subtle, well-executed paintings which repay time spent contemplating their fine distinctions”.

(This work was displayed with this label to mark Audrey Parker's death in 2020)