Published on June 05, 2020

Neal Parks

“The thing that drives my craft is the desire to create visual experiences that capture concepts of universal connectivity and self-awareness. I like to read about history and the evolution of cultures, things and ideas. The art I make tells abstract stories of time. I am also interested in design and architecture - understanding how we can experience space. As a person with a lifelong hearing issue I seem to be more acutely tuned into spatial awareness. With an active, complex layering of line work and dots I render shapes into a texture-like surface. I achieve this aesthetic by drawing with oil paint sticks. I work with a vocabulary of essential forms, architectonic and natural, that emerge in each piece to engender for the viewer, what I intend, as a positive, contemplative experience.” Neal Parks.

Neal Parks is an artist, designer and teacher. Parks specializes in client collaborations creating site-specific work, both as an artist and design/build carpenter. Born in Michigan and raised in Woodstock, CT, Parks graduated from Woodstock Academy (1980). He received a BFA in Painting from Pratt Institute (1984), and an MFA in Painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art (1993). During 6 years of residing in the Bay Area, Parks created numerous works for corporate and residential settings in Northern and Southern California. Now residing in Western Massachusetts since 1999, Parks maintains his studio practice and continues to build his list of patrons in the CT River Valley and beyond. Neal has been a visual arts teacher at the Pomfret School, Parsons School of Design and Becker College. Since 2011 he has taught as an adjunct at Eastern Connecticut State University.