Nola Parker
Nola's Studio in Vermont.
Nola Parker is a self-taught landscape painter that lives and works in central Vermont. Her work has appeared in publications such as New American Paintings and Aether Magazine and can be found in public and private collections nationally. She is represented in Austin, Texas by Wally Workman Gallery.
Can you tell us a bit about the process of making your work?
I work from photographs so my process generally starts there. I’ve never really been a faithful sketchbook-keeper, so my ideas usually get worked out in my camera. I have an actual camera that I use when I can remember it but I'm getting more into just using my phone camera because it’s what I have on me all the time. I take photos of everything outside. When it comes to landscapes, I’m drawn to scenes or places that feel a certain way, or have an element that I’m excited or curious to paint. Before starting a larger work I usually do a small study or two on paper, usually in gouache. I’m doing some acrylic painting right now but gouache is probably my favorite medium. I’m trying to get more into working on multiple paintings at a time but my standard routine is to get completely absorbed in one painting and live inside it and the reference photographs for weeks until the situation becomes untenable and the work is done. I work in a small studio out of my home so I have learned to love working on paper because it doesn’t take up a lot of space.
Old Growth, gouache on paper, 13 x 21", 2021.
Can you talk about the use of patterns in your paintings? It appears very meditative to us but also brings a beautiful vibration and movement to your work.
I think my first creative impulse from childhood was doodling, which I inherited from my dad: a compulsive need to make marks that have no direction or meaning, something that settles my mind and body. The patterned elements of my work are definitely a place where I get to satisfy that obsessive part of my brain. That sort of meditative practice lends itself well to painting the natural world, because so much in nature is hypnotic in its repetition: leaves on a tree, a mat of vines, a field of grass. And to me finding patterns in a landscape is often a gateway to expressing more about what has drawn me to that scene, a way to communicate movement or attitude rather than just reproducing the image outright.
What are some references you draw upon in your work? Are there any themes in particular that you like to focus on when creating?
I’ve certainly been inspired by the great landscape painters: David Hockney, the Group of Seven, Georgia O’Keefe among so many others. I didn’t have any formal art education so I really haven’t seen as much art as I probably should have. What drives and inspires me is my experience of the world. I spent a lot of time outdoors growing up in Vermont and I still feel that same sense of wonder and mystery I felt as a little kid standing in the big woods and just feeling like, “I don’t know the half of what is really going on out there” and finding some calm in that. There is a Wendell Berry poem called “The Peace of Wild Things” that describes that feeling better than I ever could. Right now, I think something that I’m incorporating more into my work is a sense of environmental stewardship. I don’t know how I could paint the land without considering how myself as a human being fits into it. The work I’ve been doing the past few months has focused less on pictorial landscapes and more on capturing precise details of specific plants/places/times of day. These works feel almost memorial-like as I consider the idea that landscapes I have loved and lived in may cease to exist in my or my children’s lifetimes as the climate crisis intensifies.
Rain-Wet: Hostas and Vinca, acrylic on panel, 30 x 30", 2021.
Where are some of your favorite spaces that support contemporary art or design? Now that the art has an online presence, has that changed?
I have two young kids, ages 2 and 5, whom I have spent a lot of time with over the past two years. Getting back into the studio after my second son was born was really challenging, especially with the pandemic. It’s often hard for me to integrate my artist self with my parent and caregiver self, so some of my favorite art spaces right now are ones that support artist parents, especially artist mothers. The Artist/Mother Podcast and community is fantastic and has really filled in this gap for me in representation of women who are making work about motherhood and also just making work while mothering. In that same vein, I really love this Instagram started by Hilary Doyle, called Little Studio Assistants. It’s really thoughtful interviews with artist parents and is full of glorious nuggets of advice on both art making and parenting. I live in a small town in a pretty rural area so I’m grateful that the art world is more online these days as it's often my only chance to see art in my day to day life.
Who are some of your favorite artists? Or who has been inspirational recently?
A few favorites right now would be Madeline Donahue, who I think captures the visceral physicality of motherhood so well, also Larry Madrigal and Polina Barskaya. Sarah West is an amazing artist whose work I've loved for a long time. Scott Kahn is an all-time favorite that I come back to constantly, as well as Sarah McEneaney and Maira Kalman. Eric Aho is a Vermont painter I really admire.
Do you have any shows coming up? Anything else you would like to share?
It seems far off but I have a solo exhibition coming up at Wally Workman gallery in Austin, TX in early 2023. Other than that folks can find me on Instagram, which I have a love/hate relationship with, but the love part is connecting with other artists and getting to see what people are doing/making. A huge thank you to Project Gallery V for organizing this show and to juror Adam Liam Rose. I’m thrilled to be in the company of such an amazing group of artists.
Nola Parker’s work is included in our show “Transcendental States,” September 15th - October 15th, 2021. Visit her work at nolaparker.com or on Instagram @nola.parker.