GalleryViews / Midtown

 Ray Parker at Joan T. Washburn Gallery,
 20 West 57th Street (closed April 17th)

These paintings were completed in the late 60s and early 70s and represent what the artist describes as a liberation from the �inborn American distaste for shape consciousness and the fear that drawing could be corny, which caused us to use anything but the traditional means to paint a canvas�.  From this perspective they represent somewhat of a reaction to the artist�s �Simple Paintings� seventeen years earlier 

Ray Parker, Untitled (For Caroline), 1975, oil on canvas, 21 x 19.75 in

Ray Parker, Untitled (For Caroline), 1975 (Detail)

that were featured in this gallery (and reviewed here) in late 2000.  The Simple Paintings were made by applying paint with rags and possessed a deft sense of touch even as the forms projected a solid quality of weight and rich depth of color.  All of this was helped along in that the shapes were presented on primarily white backgrounds.

Ray Parker, Installation View

The paintings from the 70s, as this show is titled, do represent the freedom that Parker mentions in regard to his earlier work without taking anything away from it. For one thing the forms are cut loose and allowed to flit about the picture plane like birds or leaves of exotic plant life billowing in the wind. Take a look at Untitled (For Caroline) from 1975 which consists of mostly primary colors. The shapes, all close in size, appear to dance to around the ground like Matisse�s cutouts, albeit without such direct figurative references.  The yellow 

Ray Parker, Untitled (For Caroline), 1973, oil on canvas, 36 x 24 in

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