About
Douglas John Parsons
I am a multidisciplinary artist working predominantly with sculpture and installation. Taking inspiration from the natural world, an evolving ecological understanding and appreciation is central to my work. Exploration and discovery, interaction and manipulation, amalgamation through curation, define my process and practice. Viewer involvement, an essential activator of my work.
Finding and gathering mediums and objects, with time, place and memory instilled in their historical source . My escape to raw beautiful landscape unveil a personal empathetic engagement with organic residues such as skulls, bones, shells, insects, seeds, fossils, wood and then there is rock, my madget and charge. I collect to connect, to escape, to marvel, to narrate.
Chosen objects altered through reduction carving or placement, guided by intuition and interpretation. Those unaltered, are simply left to impactfully influence on closer inspection. Levels of understanding and viewing are enhanced by methods of fabrication and placement, in novel spaces or in the singular to enhanced intricacy. Abstraction of form allows my engagement with craftsmanship and furthers my freedom to discover the immediacy of creation. Emotional resonance, beauty in natural forms and material with notions of harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature are represented precariously aside and contrasted with the negativity of an anthropocentric culture, to raise consciousness of disaster, death, decay and survivalism. A narrative addressing the precarious nature of materialism, cultural landscape and matters of entropy and temporality.
Relationships are formed with immediacy and demonstrate the coherence or intertwining links between chosen objects, not notably comparative. Demonstrations of ephemerality and longevity. My reflective process often directed by location and further informed by situation. Personal memories prompt focus and enhance the overall feel and energy in my work.