Latest Work

This is a personal piece, part of my 30-year studio practice. I always start with an internal story or emotion, which I sketch in a thumbnail, or directly on the canvas. The promising early beginning inevitably hits a wall, and I don't know where to go next. That's when I do something risky and counter-intuitive -- a dark glaze, or an overlay of a completely different image -- that pushes the piece out of my control into an unexpected new place. From there, I let the image itself tell me what to do next. Sometimes I'll get ideas from my external world; sometimes it's purely internal. It's an instinctive process of filling in color and shape until it feels done (or until I can't stand to look at it anymore). It isn't until months or years later that it makes sense to me; and even teaches me something I didn't realize I needed to know.

To see more expressionist painting, visit darkparr.com.

  • 2019-2020
  • Painting, Personal
  • Collection of the Artist