An International Directory of Contemporary Collage Artists.

Singing the light fantastic
9.5" x 7", mixed media collage; 2020

Sherry Parker
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

STATEMENT

Parker’s work combines meticulous execution, edgy whimsy, flairs of surrealism, and witty imagination.
Resolutely analogue in a digital era, she relies on CHANCE for her inspiration. Parker writes, “What
excites me about the collage medium are the ideas that flow from chance: the serendipitous discovery
of “found” materials, the random (unconscious) selection process, the fortuitous mistakes, and the
bringing together of disparate ephemera to create curious connections out of chaos. Oxymoronically,
I call this process “orchestrated chance.” CHANCE is my muse!”

“My work reflects my playfully irreverent response to, or perhaps refuge from, the “furious folly” of these
times. This can be seen in unexpected and surreal imagery, deconstruction and humanization of
machines, and in anthropomorphic hybrids. My work is my way of softening the world around me and
making my peace with it.”

BIO

Sherry Parker has been working in the collage medium since the early 80’s and has exhibited in
galleries in New York, Santa Fe, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Pasadena, Portland, and
throughout northern California.

Recent collage-related accomplishments include, special effects/set design for a contemporary opera
company in San Francisco (2018),
communications consultant and curator/juror for “MARVELOUS,” International Exhibition of Collage and
Assemblage Sebastopol, California (2017), and was commissioned by Imagery Estate Winery to design
the label for their 2015 Cabernet Franc.

Tragically, in October 2017, her home, studio, and all of her work were destroyed in the ravenous
California firestorms. Grateful for the generosity of her first responder artist friends, Sherry soon
accumulated enough tools and materials to create ten new collages enabling her to make her scheduled
show at DZINE in San Francisco (2018). The following fall, she was given a solo show at the Foley
Gallery in New York City. She has since made her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico where she has
rebuilt her studio and her life.

Parker spent her business career in advertising and marketing research from which she retired in 2007
to pursue art full time. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Occidental College in Los Angeles and
a graduate degree in French from the Université de Lausanne, Switzerland..

ARTIST CONTACT
(click to email)
www.sherryparkerart.com
IMAGES

Birds of a feather
10" x 8.5" , mixed media collage; 2020

Call of the Wild
10" x 8" , mixed media collage; 2020

Dare Dancers
11 " x 8.5" , mixed media collage; 2020

piano piano
11 " x 8.5" , mixed media collage; 2020

 

COLLAGE BY WOMEN / COLLAGE FIRMADO POR MUJERES
Published on Jan 17, 2019 by Promopress, Barcelona, Spain

"Collage by Women presents 50 international women artists working in the field of collage today
through a rigorous selection of their works. Curated by the Spanish collage artist Rebeka Elizegi,
the book gives space to voices from all backgrounds, origins, and artistic expressions, and
shows the wide variety of perspectives that are shaping the panorama of collage today, bringing
to light a parallel effervescence of female artistic initiatives around the world.

From emerging names to more well-known and established ones, the artists featured here are pushing
back the boundaries of art. Collage by Women wants to call attention to the experiences and creative
processes of artists that should be on our radar through an impressive selection of manual and digital
techniques, topics and aesthetic choices, accompanied by texts that provide in-depth approaches to
the inspiration, influences and work trajectory of each artist. Born from the belief that women’s voices
are of the utmost relevance in all cultural and social fields, the book will surely contribute to a healthier,
more comprehensive, more inclusive understanding of our reality.”

Artists Marsha Balian and Sherry Parker both work in the medium of collage,
using instinctive juxtapositions of found images & intuitive compositions to
create works full of mystery and humor.

Balian, who leaves behind a long career as health care provider, sees her work as
reflecting an interest in the bits & pieces of narrative that make up a life. Her collages,
however, are never straightforward stories. They begin with a playful mix of odds &
ends, ephemera, and studio scraps. And she builds on each work as improvisation,
letting the sense & direction of each piece unfold intuitively. 

Of her work Parker says: “CHANCE is my muse. What excites me about this
medium are the ideas that flow from chance: the serendipitous discovery of 'found'
materials, the random (unconscious) selection process, the fortuitous mistakes and
the bringing together of disparate ephemera to begin the formation of order out of
chaos.  I call this process 'orchestrated chance'."  Parker's impeccably crafted
collages have much in common with classic Surrealism, with their shadowy
landscapes and anthropomorphic hybrids. 

GearBox is open Thurs. & Fri. 12 - 6 pm,

Saturdays 11 - 5,

& First Fridays 6 - 9 pm

(  (510) 859 - 5208

 

De l'art helvétique contemporain

rubrique des arts plastiques et de la littérature en Suisse 04/02/2017

Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret

Sherry Parker une chatte aux coussinets feutrés

Sherry Parker (qui a étudié à Lausanne) sort ses doux sarcasmes par ses collages.
Cela évite aux mots de faire la morale. Pour autant l’artiste évite toute impasse sur
la métaphore visuelle. Elle prouve que le destin et le défi des postmodernes restent
de gratter la poussière des apparences. Elle reconstitue l’homo sap iens à partir de
ses morsures. Elle ignore la mesure lorsqu’il s’agit d’évoquer l’existence mais elle
montre tout autant à travers ses fresques ce qui fait tourner en bourrique. Pas
question de caresser un blanc-seing ou de dormir sur la table del’atelier.

Sherry Parker ne cesse de remettre le couvert dans ses narrations où un pigeon borde au besoin un
lit à baldaquin. Qui sait si ne se trouvera pas une viole de gambe sous les sabots d’un cheval ?
Bref la praticienne poursuit sa quête avec une finesse exquise. Elle fait penser à une chatte aux
coussinets feutrés en perpétuelle action d’émerveillement en partant pourtant de ce qui ne prête pas
à rire. La collagiste dédouble les caps de bonne espérance et fait jaillir d’un édredon une vois lactée :
sa trainée de poudre éclatante s’étend sur des brassées de nuit. Manière d’essuyer les railleries et
les « angelures » en négociant des mesures indicibles dans le moindre jardin de groseilles.

Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret

Linternaute.com
Salon-littéraire

2/1/17
Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret

http://salon-litteraire.linternaute.com/fr/arts/content/1943963

Sherry Parker la pudique

Sherry Parker est une collagiste raffinée. Rien de « bricolé » dans son œuvre. Le collage prend un
caractère spirituel puisqu’il métamorphose le monde jusqu’à lui donner un envol en dénonçant ses
horreurs en images elliptiques. La technique le façonne par la matérialisation des rêves étranges et
pénétrants. 

Reprenant la réalité Sherry Parker jette du feu sur son huile.

L'artiste n’épuise jamais les risques tout en jouant les  romantiques et en provoquant errances et
dérives en filages intempestifs. Les vérités admises y deviennent inaudibles et le réel se franchit vers
un dedans que nous trouverons jamais sur une carte - fût-elle du tendre.

Objectif ou non le hasard parfaitement contrôlé fait la nique à la réalité. Surgissent des images du
troisième type où se cultivent des rapports inédits. Sherry Parker travaille les impressions de
matière et d’optique dans ses filages intempestifs.  La mélancolie se retire comme un escargot dans
coquille.

L’artiste rend l'impalpable visible. L’œuvre témoigne d'une sororité mystérieuse à l’esprit surréaliste 
et ludique. L’artiste n’épuise jamais le risque de rapports intempestifs. Il y a là plus d’impudence
que d’impudeur là où tout se montre ou plutôt se devine.

Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret

John Hundt and Sherry Parker are cutting-edge California collagists who share a fascination with anthropomorphism. There are many interesting parallels in their work: meticulous execution, flairs of
surrealism, edgy whimsy, and wittyimagination.

John Hundt’s collages explore the notion of evolution that “took a wrong turn”, be it flora or fauna –
blending and distorting encyclopedic-like elements drawn from human, animal, geology, astrology,
and archeology. He quips, “The funny thing is, it is likely that over the hundreds of million years of
Life on Earth, many of these strange little creatures may have well walked the earth at one time.”

Sherry Parker is intrigued by CHANCE and the way in which this phenomenon “informs” her work
from start to finish – the serendipitous discovery of "found" materials, the random (unconscious)
selection process, the fortuitous mistakes, and the bringing together of disparate ephemera to create
order out of chaos. Oxymoronically, she calls her process “orchestrated chance.”

Both oeuvres, in their own unique styles, are marvelously stranger than fiction.

Metamorphic: Collage in the Dada/Surrealist Tradition

Jenny Honnert Abell, John Hundt, Catie O’Leary, Sherry Parker, Francesca Pastine and Vanessa
Woods

2016 marks the centenary of Dada, the anarchic art movement that signaled the end of
nineteenth-century bourgeois naturalism and the beginning of the twentieth-century concept of the
artist as miscreant and provocateur. Unlike Cubists like Picasso, Braque and Schwitters, who used
collage to seek expression in
abstract form, Dadaists like Hannah Hoch, George Grosz, Raoul Hausmann, and Max Ernst
employed collage for the subversive critique of the hypocritical European society that had
slaughtered a generation in the Great War. The Surrealists a decade later employed collage with
equal distaste for social conformity, especially in the areas of sexual desire and, following Freud’s
discovery of the unconscious, the kingdom of dreams. The prolifically creative Max Ernst, who was
involved with both movements, pioneered the use of cut-up and recombined old engravings for his
influential collage novel, La Femme Cent Tetes, The Hundred-Headed Woman. The juxtaposition of
unlikely elements to create a paradoxical or enigmatic narrative became one of Surrealism’s
signature devices, nicely expressed in the phrase from the visionary Uruguayan of the 1860s, Isidore
Ducasse (aka the Comte de Lautréamont), whose Miltonic/satanic novel , Lay of Maldoro, became
something of a breviary for Surrealism: “as beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissection table of
an umbrella and a sewing machine.”

The subversive spirit of Dada and Surrealism continues in the Bay Area, a traditional haven for
independent-minded creatives. Metamorphic brings together six practitioners of this resolutely low-
tech but still powerful medium for creating visual poetry: Jenny Honnert Abell, John Hundt, Catie
O’Leary, Sherry Parker, Francesca Pastine, and Vanessa Woods. I hope that the imaginative
marriages of art and science (since much of the imagery is taken from scientific publications) in
these small, charged works wil
l find resonance in the Stanford tech audience. André Breton, known as the ‘pope of Surrealism’—
because the movement, comprised of lapsed Catholics, was churchlike, to the extent of including
excommunications—defined Surrealism as pure psychic automatism without aesthetic concerns.
Of course no artists ignore aesthetics; to imply that intellectual content precludes visual style is a
mistake that only non-artist theorists make. These six Bay Area collagists explore the creative
imagination without limits, or, rather, they accept the limitations of the medium, and, in a judo-like
reversal, transform them into strengths.

For more information, please see:

SherryParkerArt.com

JennyHonnertAbell.com | JohnHundt.com | CatieOLeary.com |
FrancescaPastineArt.com | VanessaWoods.com

There will be a reception for the artists on Thursday, August 4, from 4:30 to 7:00pm, in the foyer
of the Paul G. Allen Building. The adjacent David W. Packard Electrical Engineering Building will bea
open as well.

Renowned collage artist SHERRY PARKER draws on the unconscious and serendipity to create her
unique images. She uses unexpected and nonsensical imagery, 1950s iconography, deconstruction
and humanization of machines, and anthropomorphic hybrids to conjure up surreal worlds. In her own
words: “Collage is a rush for me – from start to finish – an adventure, a happening. Chance is my
muse." Parker is among the most inventive and engaging collage artists working today. Her work has
been exhibited in galleries in New York, Pasadena, Seattle, Santa Fe, Portland, San Francisco,
Berkeley and throughout Northern California. She is currently showing at the Nisa Touchon Gallery in
Santa Fe and will be showing work at Stanford University in July.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Art I'm Looking At: "Ain't Natural" at Hammerfriar Gallery in Healdsburg

by Colin

I attended the opening of the latest show at Hammerfriar Gallery in Healdsburg on May 2. The show,
called "Ain't Natural," brings together four superb collage artists working in the Bay Area--Jenny Honnert
Abell, John Hundt, Sherry Parker, and Scott Wilson.

Collage unites the four artists but they work in very different styles.

Sherry Parker is among the most delightfully inventive artists I've encountered in the Bay Area. 
Her work is consistently of the highest caliber. She has an exquisite sense of composition. Her subtle color
sense is equally impressive. Most especially, though, I like her work for the slightly edgy whimsy she nearly
always achieves. Bizarre creatures, part human, part machine, inhabit her surreal landscapes. These are
dream worlds, yet they are familiar enough to be both seductive and deeply unsettling. They are inviting and
a little frightening at the same time.

To take just one example, "Yellow-throated Lookout Bird" is immediately amusing because of its
title, which plays on the conventions of real bird names, and many of Parker's titles are funny, but here we
see a lone, one-legged sentinel on what looks like a coastal rock, keeping its squinty eye out for signs of
approach. But its ability to see is illusory. The bird's eye is just a screw at the base of a blade from a pair of
clippers--a rather long,decurved blade from a nasty-looking pair of clippers. The antenna, perhaps, takes in
more useful information?

Hammerfriar Gallery is at 132 Mill Street, in Healdsburg. The "Ain't Natural" show will run through June 22.

This book was written by Sherry Parker to document a two-year collaborative revival of Exquisite Corpse of which she was the originator, curator, director, and participating artist. This exhilarating collaborative adventure of thirty-four Northern California artists during the years 2010 and 2011 is called EXCOR. It started with three artists who decided to gamble with chance, and experiment with a revival of the 1920's Surrealist game in Paris, Exquisite Corpse, in which each artist adds to a figure without knowing what the other artists have done. The game, which was extended to fellow artists, became infectious, and soon the pool grew to thirty-four artists. The EXCORS were
unveiled over the course of the project in spirited ceremonies at the artists' studios.  A total of fifty EXCORS were created.  

Enter the world of EXCOR and discover how collaborative play of chance and discovery among artists can produce new creative expression, powerful communications, camaraderie, and the exchange of ideas –every bit as relevant or irrelevant or irreverent to these times of "furious folly" in America as it was during the1920's in Paris.

return to the top of the page