David Parker

David Parker has been a professional artist for 30 years since completing a Fine Art Degree in the early eighties at Newcastle Polytechnic. He now lives and paints in a tenement flat in Merchiston, on Edinburgh’s south side. 

Working in a tradition of domestic, British 20th century painting, he cites influences such as Mathew Smith, William Gilles and The Scottish Colourists in both subject matter and painterliness. 

‘I don’t work from photographs; it’s the act of looking; of abbreviating what’s in-front of me, that I find interesting. I’m not interested in narrative or topographical imagery that aims to take the viewer to another place. I’m more rooted in painting what is around me.  After all what could be more extraordinary and fascinating than that which is in front of us at any one time?’  

By exploiting the expressive qualities of oil paint, he is attempting to capture that sense of ‘mystery experienced’ in a particular moment.

David paints interiors and still-life scenes, working in oils on canvas or board.  David uses a bright palette and employs a heavy impasto technique giving the surface of his paintings a rich and decadent quality.