In the News

Art Talk, Saturday April 29 at 12:00 pm

BJ working on one of the paintings for this show.

BJ will be giving an artist's talk about his show, (Re)building Myth, on Saturday, April 29, at 12 pm at The Krazberg Gallery

2023

B.J. Parker will be having a show in the Gallery at The Krazberg. April 7-May 27, 2023.

The opening reception will be April 7th.

In Search: (Re)building Myth is a body of oil paintings, drawings, and sculptures that explores the search for meaning in a fractured existential landscape. The work investigates the stories we tell ourselves. We often call these personal narratives or myths while philosophers and theologians call them metanarratives. This body of work asks how metanarratives shape us, the importance they have in our lives, and what we do when they fall apart.

To examine these questions, l've set a group of characters in a post-apocalyptic St. Louis devoid of society.

The characters wander through a dilapidated city physically restructuring a ruined landscape of myth. Since the story works through metaphor, by creating space for these characters to explore a ruined landscape l'm also creating space for the viewer to explore an interior landscape. The paintings reflect snapshots of this postapocalyptic world while the sculptures function as artifacts from the future world.

2022

B. J. Parker’s drawing, “A Ba'al” was featured at the gallery of Art St. Louis.

Two of B. J. Parker’s paintings, “Cross Pressured,” and “The Overly Icon” were featured at the St. Louis Artist's Guild Show.

B J Parker’s painting, Soraya's Choice won 1st Place in the Heartland Art Club's Member Showcase.

B. J. Parker is honored to be one of the 85 artists to whom @regionalartscommission has generously granted support this year. RAC’s support keeps the arts invigorated and makes life in STL vibrant. Thank you RAC!

B. J. Parker, St. Louis contemporary figurative painter, prepares for solo show at Kranzberg Arts Foundation.

B.J. Parker’s “Fragments of a New Mythology” – the 48- by 60-inch oil on canvas shown here – stuns the eye, albeit pleasantly.

A 2021-22 creation, it speaks, with its figurative intensity, of an earlier era and, with its precision and (to a lesser extent) particular if muted palette, perhaps recalls certain works of the Spanish giant Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923). In the exactitude of Parker’s delineation, in fact, the muscles of the central figure’s upper body bring to mind an anatomical term now all but elided by time’s passage: thews.

Parker, a St. Louisan, self-identifies as “a contemporary figurative painter, teacher and dog dad living in the Tower Grove South neighborhood,” adding that his work “explores human relationships, the experience of the sublime, and the meaning and reconstruction of myth in a postmodern context by way of large-scale narrative paintings.”

Regarding myth, the artist confesses to a fascination with it, which led him to earn a doctorate in ancient religion from Waco, Texas’ Baylor University; in the Lone Star State, he also trained in the visual arts at Fort Worth’s Texas Academy of Figurative Art. With that background, Parker has taught art and religion at Baylor and other places – most recently, St. Louis’ Gateway Academy of Classical Art.

“I transitioned from academia into the art world full time about five years ago … ,” Parker relates. In that regard, he numbers among the 2021-22 Kranzberg Arts Foundation Artists in Residence, and this year, he also won a grant from the Regional Arts Commission.

“In the last couple of years, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the way in which stories serve us as everyday folks,” Parker reflects. “So many of us have stories that are so deeply embedded in our lives that we nearly don’t even recognize their presence.

“I’ve wondered, though, what happens when those stories fall apart or, maybe worse, stop working? How do we move forward into a world of unreliable stories while at the same time deeply craving the structure and security of familiarity? These are the sorts of questions undergirding the work for my solo show at the Kranzberg Arts Foundation that will open next March.”

To learn more about our featured artist, visit bjparkerart.com.

______________________________________________________________

Art Mart Demoes with B. J. Parker

B. J. Parker teaching a demo at Art Mart

August 13th — Basics of Portraiture I: Drawing

September 10th — Basics of Portraiture II: Underpainting

October 8th — Basics of Portraiture III: Color

November 12th — Basics of Portraiture IV: Finishing Glazes

______________________________________________________________

The Krantzberg Arts Foundation Newsletter
Dec 3, 2021

B.J. Parker is a realist artist working in oil paint, graphite, charcoal, and silverpoint. B.J. is the lead instructor at the Gateway Academy of Classical Art (GACA), an artists’ collective and training center committed to the tradition of classical realism. Here, B. J. offers classical realist training in drawing, painting, and theory. GACA hosts open-studio figure drawing events, offers classical atelier studies, and arranges workshops featuring guest artists from Saint Louis and around the world.

B.J.'s artistic approach amalgamates the ideas he has learned from studying with Ron Cheek at the Texas Academy of Figurative Art, Sadie Valeri, and Patricia Watwood. B. J. is committed to furthering the realist tradition within the contemporary art world and in his work he explores the in-betweeness of the human condition through figurative creations in graphite, charcoal, and oil. He employs traditional practices dating back to Renaissance as a means of meditating on the suffering and triumphs of life. Through engaging the liminality between pain and joy, his work seeks to make space for the individual to consider the value of her or his own life.

BJ Parker teaching at the Gateway Academy

October 2021

BJ Parker, Gaca’s Drawing and Painting Instructor received an “Artist in Residence” award from the Kranzberg Arts Foundation. Below is the article about BJ and the link to the rest of the artists who also received the award.

FULL ARTICLE

Meet our Artists in Residence

The 2021-2022 Kranzberg Arts Foundation Resident Artists. The new class — 5 visual artists, 2 filmmakers, 3 writers and 5 musicians — will spend the next year pursuing their art with the help of work/performance space, training, marketing support, a $1,000 cash stipend and more.

B.J. Parker of the Gateway Academy of Classical Art

B. J. Parker is a contemporary figurative painter, teacher, and dog dad living in Tower Grove South. Fascinated by myth and always practicing the visual language, he completed his PhD in ancient religion at Baylor University and trained in the visual arts at the Texas Academy of Figurative Art. He has also studied painting closely with Sadie Valeri and Patricia Watwood. He has taught art and religion at Baylor University, Greenville University, and most recently at the Gateway Academy of Classical Art. His work explores human relationships, the experience of the sublime, and forgotten stories. He plans to use his residency to visually explore the meaning and re-construction of myth in a post-modern context by way of large scale narrative paintings.
"I’m always interested in the stories that shape us. I tend to think of mythology as those deep stories that help us find meaning in the world. I’m also aware of the sharp fragmentation of meta-narrative that humanity has experienced in the last 100 years. During this residency, I’ll be working on a series of paintings that explores the fragmentation of metanarrative in a post-apocalyptic St. Louis in which all markers of society have disintegrated yet a community of a handful of characters desires cohesion. My hope is that this setting creates space for the viewer to explore the ways in which we as humans experience the desire for the transcendent in a fragmented context. I imagine this body of work functioning in two distinct ways."