About
I am inviting you to participate in my new painting by becoming an art patron. By sponsoring, you will have your name painted into the image, and your spirit will infuse the work.
Here’s how this project came about: a few months ago, a new painting flashed into my head. It was significantly larger than all my previous paintings – 5’ x 8’ to be exact. It also felt more urgent: no matter how much I tried to reason my way out of doing something this size (exhibition, storage, costs, etc), the image just wouldn’t go away. It became clear that I would have to find a way to bring it to life.
As I began planning this project, I realized why it’s important. It’s a response to the current global uncertainty and the general urge to redefine ourselves within the human community. As an artist, I am compelled to contribute my observations and skills to the mix – to find connections and create new solutions in the space of the imagined. I want to paint this moment in time, the state of our world, and my place in it. The best contribution I can make is through my art. And it feels that, more than ever, the world is searching for visions of an alternative future.
Because the painting is driven by an urge to connect, I wanted to include others in the process. Not only in contributing to the project and witnessing my progress, but participating in the actual imagery.
I also saw this work as a return to art patronage; a commissioning pact between the artist and their society to envision what could be. So I created a unique kind of patronage program specifically for this painting. The idea is to have the names of those who most inspire my thoughts and my work create an aesthetic scenic backdrop, a kind of petroglyphic pattern that weaves in and out of the imaginary landscape.
In exchange for a contribution (of any size), not only will you have your name memorialized into the image, but you will help insure that this piece comes to fruition by defraying its associated costs. Your patronage will also create a system of exchange that allows your labor and energy to be an integral part of my most ambitious work yet. Immortalized in the final image, you will be part of a new movement I hope to inspire in the arts. You will be a 21st century art patron.
This project marks a new direction in my career. After two decades of painting, I’ve created my own visual vocabulary, a kind of representational expressionism – a fusion of fantastic realism and fluid expressionism, the two veins that weave through my work and that I see coming together in this piece.
As part of the overall patronage process, I’ll be sharing with my unique creative process on this blog, and the development of this painting as it unveils itself to all of us. I’ll post the progress of the painting, so you can watch it grow.
To sponsor, click here (or on the “sponsor” page at top right or in the menu above left). I would like to hear from you. Please subscribe by entering your email on the left so you can receive updates and post comments.
I look forward to sharing this journey together!
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Maggie Parr has been painting professionally since 1992, and has exhibited at the Armand Hammer Museum, Hofstra University Museum, Social and Public Art Resource Center, and the Mayor’s Gallery at Los Angeles City Hall, to name a few. Her work has been published in several books and exhibition catalogs. Her classic paintings for the Disney Galleries are in demand among international collectors.
Parr received a BA in Fine Arts from Pomona College, and later studied with Steven Assael, Cheryl Kline, Jeremy Lipking, and Steve Huston. She maintains a successful commercial art and design firm producing murals, portraits, illustrations, and architectural design. She works from her Los Angeles studio, traveling occasionally to paint murals on location and consult on special design projects. To view more work and complete bio and resumé, visit maggieparrstudio.com for her fine art, and maggieparr.com for her commercial art and design portfolio.