“For me, the beauty of a landscape painting is its power to situate the viewer in the middle of nature providing a sensation of light, wind, water, and fog. Vistas and panoramas put the landscape at a distance. I prefer to crop the view to maximize the abstract quality of the composition and place the viewer inside the landscape.”

No matter what Leslie Parke chooses to paint, the line between the abstract and the real is one on which she likes to balance. This is why her subject matter can be so diverse “When I look at a landscape I think about artists like Jackson Pollock, Morris Louis, Brice Marden and even Donald Judd. The lines, the light and structure found in their work are what I look for in selecting my compositions. When I find these elements in a natural setting that is what I most enjoy painting.”

Parke received her B.A. and M.A. from Bennington College, Vt. and her paintings are included in innumerable Museum and Corporate collections as well as exhibits throughout the world, including Gibsone Jessop Gallery in Toronto, the Galerie Aqui Siam Ben, A.I.R. Vallauris, Vallauris, France, and the David Zapf Gallery, San Diego. She has received many awards and grants, and has given lectures at the San Diego Museum of Art and the Bennington Museum, among others.

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