Tonight, Paul Kasmin Gallery opened its doors to the first exhibition co-curated by artists KAWS and Erik Parker, Pretty on the Inside. The show includes works in a range of media by seven American artists: Todd James, KAWS, Tony Matelli, Erik Parker, Joyce Pensato, Peter Saul, and Karl Wirsum. Each has a unique style, tied together by a singular capacity to draw the viewer into the depths of their respective material.

The exhibition runs through  August 19, 2011.

Paul Kasmin Gallery
293 Tenth Avenue
511 West 27th Street
New York, NY 10001

Photography by Jacob Breinholt for Curated.

Check out all the work from Pretty on the Inside after the jump.

Paul Kasmin Gallery hosts this week’s “must attend” opening this week with the unveiling of Pretty on the Inside, a group exhibition curated by Erik Parker and KAWS.

Paul Kasmin Gallery presents the exhibition Pretty on the Inside, organized by Erik Parker and KAWS. This is the first time that the two artists have collaborated to organize an exhibition. Pretty on the Inside includes works in a range of media by seven American artists: Todd James, KAWS, Tony Matelli, Erik Parker, Joyce Pensato, Peter Saul, and Karl Wirsum. At first glance, these artworks challenge the viewer through their visual intensity, but upon closer inspection, they reveal an inner beauty. Many of the artists included make ironic or subversive works, hijacking the language of cartoons and comics to both celebrate and criticize contemporary culture.

The show runs from June 23, 2011 to August 19, 2011.

Paul Kasmin Gallery
293 Tenth Avenue
New York, NY 10001

New York-based Erik Parker launched two new archival prints with Exhibition A this week. Both “Tucked” and “Untitled (Late Bloomer)” reflect the artists ability to pull influence from high art and vernacular practice. The two still life works also show a certain panache when it comes to color selection. Each print comes in an edition of 50.

A detail of “Tucked” is shown above. View “Untitled (Late Bloomer)” after the jump.

Parisian concept store colette opened yesterday the latest solo exhibition of artist Erik Parker, entitled “Re-Upped”.

“New York based artist Erik Parker (b. 1968) paints meticulously curated worlds of chaos within his brightly colored, highly saturated canvases. The artist obsessively paints layer upon layer of amorphous shapes, globules and drops pushing each composition to the optical extreme.

Parker’s biomorphic subjects not only reference the hallucinogenic psychedelia of American culture in the 1960’s, but also historical and contemporary socio-political issues. Informed by a variety of sub cultural themes, including music, graffiti and illustration, Parker offers a profound visual experience beyond his intensely layered forms of text and imagery.

Erik Parker was born in Stuttgart, Germany and studied at the University of Austin, Texas then at SUNY Purchase. Parker’s work has been widely published and has earned him several awards. He has exhibited in solo shows in Tokyo, Milan, Manchester, Cologne, New York and Los Angeles, as well as in group shows around the world. It’s here about its first exhibition in Paris, which will also present paintings and drawings on paper. A catalog, published by Honor Fraser, its gallery of Los Angeles, will be put on sale.”

colette
Rue Saint-Honore 213
75001 Paris

Photography: Mathieu Vilasco for Curated Magazine

The full recap follows after the jump.

Focus: Erik Parker opened yesterday at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The exhibition brings the Brooklyn-based artist to back to Texas (he grew up in San Antonio) through February 6, 2011.

From the museum -

Erik Parker has described his work as “fragmented samples of our culture.” His complex fantasy portraits elicit the poignant, melancholy, grotesque, psychological, provocative, and almost always comical and surreal, baggage of our time.

Swirls of pinks, blues, yellows, oranges, purples, and whites make up his meandering images. The subjects are often set against a black background, accompanied by a word or phrase nestled somewhere in the lower half of the canvas. Suggestive titles such as Half Made Man, Player Hater, Betty Fords, Drama, Crime, Hoax, Why Me, Think Twice, and American Apparel, for example, seem to label and supplement the state of each sitter. The words, when juxtaposed with the portraits, clearly speak to the present day. At the same time, the imagery calls to mind the elaborate inner workings of humanity in general.

An example of Parker’s work from the exhibition after the jump.

Jeff Newman, of The Art Collectors, recently visited the studio of painter Erik Parker. Based in Brooklyn, Parker is preparing for both a museum installation and gallery show in Los Angeles. His work has oscillated, in recent years, between icon based paintings and still life. In the middle, there persists an interest in figurative and portrait painting. All things tied together, Parker’s oeuvre exhibits an intriguing complexity – the central theme of Newman’s interview with Parker.

Read the interview here. More images of Parker’s studio after the jump. (All images © Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors).