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David Parsons, FIELDS of VISION: New Drawings
Velorose, 25 January - 7 March 2019

In FIELDS of VISION, David Parsons takes us on a journey that follows his own walks over a short period through the Suffolk countryside, specifically after harvest in Autumn 2017, around the fields near Hoxne. By turns monochrome and saturated with colour, subdued and explosive, this trip is a narrative combining consistency and variety. No bucolic stroll or happy pastoral, Parsons presents a contemplative and sensitive depiction of any and all landscapes, somehow simultaneously both fragile and robust. According to the artist, it was the starkness of cut stalks and the way that light falls on - and plays across - them that got right into [his] head. Accordingly, these apparently naive drawings enter the consciousness of the viewer

These are marks on paper that mirror the marks on the landscape made by humankind, and by movement; in turn, they reveal traces left by that landscape on the mind of the artist. Furthermore, each mark is also the result of the impact of art thereupon, as Parsons was reminded on these revelatory walks by the cut stalks of Van Gogh’s reed pen drawings. This led to his making such pens of his own, from bamboo, and in the works exhibited we chart a path of pens made from canes cut in to fine pen shapes, to ones created simply by breaking the canes in two, dipping them without hesitation in to ink

Out of the fields, ideas beyond those of the landscape itself also began to emerge: the artist’s previous work, focusing on houses and villages, and newer fascinations, such as with Persian miniatures and their reliance on a select vocabulary within nature and the built environment. Further still, the recurrent disturbing news from Syria and the threat of the potential disintegration of Europe started to creep in to the drawings. The resultant series of artworks is thus a physical representation not only of what the artist has seen in his field of vision, but also of what his walks through the fields have made him think and feel, and of his vision of the past, present and future

Unwittingly, this intriguing body of work became a diary, in the way that walking, especially in nature, is often seen as a metaphor for life. Parsons found that drawing at a constant size and with a particular palette of utensils and ink produced an organising device to bolster up a crumbling future, and to allow optimism to penetrate an otherwise darker outlook in what he describes as a cycle of work

Devoid of people, or animals, Parsons populates these new landscapes with the outlines of buildings, with trees as patterns, and the debris of farming. These drawings are the embodiment of the structural landscapes to which Parsons has referred when discussing his work in general. But whereas his previous experimentation had been with structure in another way, focusing on the relationship between the land and the sky, Parsons’ new drawings look closely at the ground, and what it represents as the foundation of our world. While this is a nature that mankind has shaped, it is also one that shapes us; Parsons inhabits this landscape, and invites us to join him

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David Parsons, Field - Cut and Trampled (2017), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 24cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Field - Cut 1 (2017), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24.5cm x 24cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Field - Blue Shadows (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 24.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Field Stalks (2017), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 23.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Field - Shadows 2 (2017), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 24cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Field Shadows (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 24.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Field - Cut 2 (2017), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 23cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Field Cut 3 (2017), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 23.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Field Cut and Strewn (2017), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 23.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Field - Stalks (2017), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 24cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Field Cut and Scattered (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 24.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Field - Strewn (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 25cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Field (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 24.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Field - Blue Horizon 2 (2017), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24.5cm x 23.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Field Plane (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 23.5cm x 24.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Blue Horizon (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 25cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, 'Blow Up 2' (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 24.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, 'Blow Up' (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 24.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Lament (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 24cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Falling Columns (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 25cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Lament 2 (2018), Ink and Charcoal on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 27cm x 27.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Falling Columns Green (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 23.5cm x 24.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Falling Columns (2018), Ink and Charcoal on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 26.5cm x 29cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Falling Columns Blue (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 23cm x 24.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Plane Tree (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 25cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Ghost Tree (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 24.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Red Tree After Ai Wei Wei (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 24.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Plane Trees (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 25cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Picture Planes (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 23.5cm x 25cm (Unique) (Detail)

David Parsons, Plane Trees White Sky (2018), Ink on Heritage Paper (signed by the artist), 24cm x 24.5cm (Unique) (Detail)

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David Parsons studied Painting and Fine Art in the late 1950s and early 1960s, adding Photography and Film to his palette in the 1970s and 1980s, and Computer-Based Art in the 1990s; he has always continued to paint and draw

Parsons has been published widely and won Arts Council awards in the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s. His work is represented in public and private collections in the UK, and private collections in Switzerland and France. He taught Fine Art throughout the UK between 1965 and 2000, has been an external examiner at numerous Universities, and sat on and chaired Art Co-operatives and Panels

Parsons has exhibited consistently for almost 55 years, in group shows throughout the UK, across Europe (France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden and Spain), and in the USA, Australia, China and Japan; institutions include Camden Arts Centre, Tate Britain and Tate Modern, BALTIC, Centre Pompidou and Fundació Antoni Tàpies. His 1- and 2-person Painting shows have been held in France and the UK since the start of the 21st Century

This is his first exhibition of Drawings, shown alongside earlier Paintings

David Parsons, Houses and Trees (2016), Oil on Canvas, 65cm x 50cm

David Parsons, Church on a Hill (2016), Oil on Canvas, 65cm x 55cm

David Parsons, Houses on a Hill (2016), Oil on Canvas, 130cm x 130cm

David Parsons, Houses on the Hill (2015), Oil on Canvas, 165cm x 65cm / David Parsons, Broadwalk (2014/5), Oil on Canvas, 200cm x 80cm

All works are for sale; to make a purchase online, visit the gallery shop