Karen PARKER

Karen Parker, née Chambers, and who may have at times used the name Karen Chambers Parker was born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1947.  According to fellow printmaker Florence Sinclair-Mahdavi (link to her website) Parker studied printmaking at the same time at Atelier 17 in Paris in the early 1970s as she did.  Parker created abstract intaglios of great elegance from the early to mid-1970s.  These betray an admiration for Stanley William Hayter and a great many artists who earned their printmaking stripes at the famed atelier.  These prints are very accomplished and reveal excellence in intaglio craftsmanship which Atelier 17 often imparted on students.  Accomplished intaglio specialists were expected to share knowledge with junior members of the cooperative.  Parker’s lines, etched or engraved, are sharp.  Her aquatint is very finely modulated.  By the early 1980s Parker had seemingly evolved artistically.  The few prints from that time are influenced by Chinese and Japanese landscape painting and printmaking.  Mountains and lakes, mostly printed in hues of blue with touches of green and the occasional subtle hue of another color, contrast against flat atmospheric backgrounds in which a round celestial body, moon or sun is often unclear, watchfully anchors her composition.  Karen Parker has, again according to Florence Sinclair-Mahdavi, moved to Menton in Southern France circa 1995.  We thank her for sharing these biographical details with us.

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