Erik Parker "Liner Notes"

On the second floor, the oeuvre of the New York-based painter Erik Parker (Stuttgart, 1968) has pride of place. Since the end of the 1990's, Parker devotes himself - with, in his own words, a 'blue collar mentality' - to painting from nine to five. The results are drawings and canvasses in which intense colours and organic forms fill out the picture plane to the very edges. Stylistically Parker's work fits into the tradition of 1980's graffiti, psychedelic 1960's record covers and comic strips by, for example, underground legend Robert Crumb. Due to the ornamental quality and visual lavishness, the term 'new Baroque' is occasionally used to describe Parker's work. Textual references play an important role in these painted fantasies. His paintings contain numerous references to heroes and celebrities from the art and music world, protagonists of political issues, drug dealers and pimps. Parker's work, often triggered by scandals, sex, violence, or simply the 'juicy details' of daily life is evidence of an 'empathic' anthropological outlook that he uses to render a razor-sharp analysis of modern day subcultures. Like the 'liner notes' that provide a written commentary of records and CD's, Parker with his work, supplies a visual commentary of recent Western (cultural) history.