New York-based artist Erik Parker’s vibrantly colourful works are filled with bold, zany shapes that synthesise across his compositions with an almost dimension-bending quality. Packed with reference material, Parker turns to comics books, hip hop, hallucinatory dreams and graffiti as sources of inspiration to create unique imagery that feels familiar yet otherworldly. His signature palette is saturated with graphics, presenting a state of mind layered with iconography borrowed from both popular culture and disregarded history.

Executed in 2001, Art Power (Cultural Shout-outs) is a personal dedication to all the people Parker loves. Functioning like a map composed of a patchwork of names, the viewer is guided into a realm of heroes and rebels from both the artworld and contemporary subcultures alike. From his influencers, such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose anti-establishment spirit Parker references by incorporating the late artist’s famous ‘SAMO’ graffiti tag, to the names of his mentors including Peter Saul, Cindy Sherman, and Richard Pettibone, Parker positions them together to heighten their collective power. Alongside American rock band, the Pixies, rapper CeeLo Green, veteran art dealer and contemporary mega-gallery David Zwirner, as well as the renowned MoMA PS1, Art Power presents the viewer with an engaging visual rap that seamlessly links all elements into a single narrative, intimately defining the artist’s life.

Parker has been featured in solo exhibitions internationally, most recently at Mary Boone Gallery, New York (2019) and HOCA, Hong Kong (2018). Furthermore, his works have been included in prominent public collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art, both in New York.